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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29777658">A Few Small Repairs</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiferet/pseuds/cleverThylacine'>cleverThylacine (Tiferet)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Voice of Stanix (Primax 1020.27 Iota) [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Transformers (IDW Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Adoption, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death Fix, Drug Use, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, Fix-It, Found Family, Functionalism (Transformers), Functionalist Hate Crimes, Genderfluid Ravage, Genetically Engineered Beings, Hate Crimes, In-Character Poetry, In-Character Political Essays, Minor Character Death, Mood Whiplash, MtMtE spoilers, Multi, Mutual Pining, Past Sexual Assault, Pining, Platonic Cuddling, Revolutionaries, Spark Experimentation, The Weak Anthropic Principle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-05-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 01:54:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>56,272</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29777658</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiferet/pseuds/cleverThylacine</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ravage hitches a ride back home with some friends; Soundwave is happy to pay for it. Shenanigans ensue.</p><p>(Or, in other words: "Rav and the Scavs' Bogus Journey". )</p><p>  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt0eH8sv-7YoRzk9ef32oHd8pDH_df93Q">Soundtrack on YouTube</a></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cosmos &amp; Soundwave (Transformers), Grimlock &amp; Misfire (Transformers), Laserbeak &amp; Soundwave (Transformers), Megatron &amp; Rodimus | Rodimus Prime, Megatron/Minimus Ambus (Transformers), Megatron/Ravage (Transformers), Misfire &amp; Ravage (Transformers), Misfire/Swerve (Transformers), Nautica/Ravage (Transformers), Ravage &amp; Blackcat (Transformers), Ravage &amp; Grimlock (Transformers), Ravage &amp; Krok (Transformers), Ravage &amp; Swerve (Transformers), Ravage/Soundwave (Transformers)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Voice of Stanix (Primax 1020.27 Iota) [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1988227</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. when the road starts calling me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/13272438">Victory Condition</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/astolat/pseuds/astolat">astolat</a>.
        </li>
        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/4932637">The Big Conversation</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enfilade/pseuds/Enfilade">Enfilade</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>If you haven't read <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27232297/chapters/66523738">Diamonds &amp; Rust</a>, the first few chapters of this fic may be <i>extremely confusing</i>; the relationship histories and canon divergence points are all to be found over there.</p><p>For the canonical version of this story, see: MTMTE, issues 43-47 and <i>The Transformers</i>, volume 2, issues 46-48.<br/>Spoiler alert: Soundwave and Ravage (among others) make better decisions in this version.</p><p>I would also like to acknowledge my friend ScreamyBird here on AO3, for being my co-conspirator, unofficial beta and primary source of Wacky Suggestions, ever since the night we sat up on Discord till the wee hours of the morning talking about how Ravage should not only have never been fridged, but should also have been the prom queen. &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Leaving the <i>Lost Light</i> -- and leaving Megatron -- was harder than Ravage thought it would be. </p><p>But staying would have been even harder.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"Run along now don't be glum<br/>Get you gone now have some fun<br/>Don't be long for the end is nigh..."</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npxzkr45U6o">Cosmo Sheldrake</a>, Come Along</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Are we okay?” Nautica asked, very softly.</p><p>I opened one optic and glared at the chronometer. I would really rather have been sleeping. “I’m not mad at you, or anyone else here, really. But we’re not a ‘we’, and we were never going to be.”</p><p>Nautica nodded. “I know. You’re going to leave the ship and go back to Soundwave.” Then she frowned. “I wish you wouldn’t.” She fiddled with the diamonds draped around her wrist.</p><p>“Keep that,” I told her. “Yes, it was a gift from the captain. But he won’t be upset. He’s not an idiot. Megatron knows I can’t go back to Soundwave with <i>his collar</i> in my bag.” I didn’t answer the other thing. She’d known I was leaving since I sat down at her table in Swerve’s.</p><p>“I came here and I found out I could be someone different than I’d been before. And so did you. Don’t you want to find out where that goes?”</p><p>“I know where it goes, Nautica.”</p><p>“You’ve got friends that aren’t Megatron now,” Nautica said, and then stopped herself.</p><p>I arched my back, stretching, flexing my claws, and pulled myself out as long as I could. “I was friends with Ratchet, too, you know. I’ve known him longer than I’ve known Megatron. I have a lot of friends you don’t even know. And I miss them.”</p><p>“Like who?”</p><p>I rolled over onto my back and looked up at her. “You’re joking, right? You shouldn’t be this dumb. You’re from Caminus, so there’s no reason for you to believe Decepticons don’t have <i>friends</i>.”</p><p>“You used to hide all the time and just watch people. I figured…” Nautica ex-vented. “I wasn’t popular, not really. I had friends, but…they weren’t real friends.” She didn’t say it, but I heard it: <i>I thought you were like me.</i></p><p>“Misfire is the realest friend I have,” I said, and laughed, because there was no way I could explain how true that statement actually was. “Laserbeak and I have been friends since they planted us in frames that happened to be right next to each other. Buzzsaw and Glit are twelve different kinds of aft, but I love them anyway. And Howlback, and Skywarp, and Krok, and Esmeral…”</p><p>“And us? All of us, not just me,” she quickly amended.</p><p>“We have the potential to be actual friends,” I told her. “I ‘faced you more than once. That’s something, right? And Swerve’s pretty real. But there are plenty of people here on this ship that I’m not going to miss. And you know that.”</p><p>“I can’t believe you danced with <i>Firestar</i> like that,” Nautica said, sitting up cross-legged. “Would the person you were when we found you out on the other ship dance like that?”</p><p>I wouldn’t have. But not for the reason she was assuming. I laughed, very softly. “Long ago, it was part of my job to dance, on top of making and keeping records, and spying on people, and eliminating my master’s enemies. They couldn’t make me hate dancing, even though I hated the people I danced for.”</p><p>Nautica’s eyes widened with horror. Slag. She’d guessed what I hadn’t said, which surprised me. I continued, because I was not going to talk about that. “Then later, I danced at the Conclave parties, back in the early days of the war. I didn’t hate that. I knew Soundwave and Megatron would kill anyone who looked at me funny unless I wanted them to.”</p><p>Nautica sighed. “A poet and a dancer. You’d have been happy on Caminus. Happier than me.”</p><p>“Probably,” I said, laughing, “except for all the people I would have had to bite because they couldn’t keep their hands to themselves.”</p><p>“We don’t treat dancers like that on Caminus—” she snapped, till I put one extended claw over her mouth.</p><p>“That was not what I meant.”</p><p>“<i>Oh</i>.” Nautica’s whole face went energon-pink. “Look, my point is… I’ve seen you do so many things, lately, that I didn’t think you were capable of. And <i>not</i> because you’re a cat. Things that I didn’t think you could do because I thought you had a terminal case of misanthropy.”</p><p>“I do,” I told her with a grin. “I’m just not the one who dies from it.” I mimed shooting a gun with one hand.</p><p>Nautica cracked up, but then her expression grew sombre. “I don’t want you to go back to being Soundwave’s hit femme.”</p><p>“Not femme right now.” I groaned, but then I waggled my brow at her. “Have you ever been…<i>hetero-curious</i>?”</p><p>Nautica ex-vented. “I don’t understand Decepticon relationships.”</p><p>“Neither do most Decepticons,” I said with a snort. “Seriously, we don’t have rules. Most people don’t even bother with taking vows. You can be monogamous if you want to, but we don’t enforce it, although you’re considered a glitch if you lie to people about it. We don’t do that thing where we stare at each other for years, or centuries, and never actually frag, speaking of which, I do hope poor Driftlock has finally at long last been laid. On the other hand, we <i>do</i> do the thing where we’re lovers for millions of years and forget to conjunx. Which is the thing I want to go home to <i>fix</i>, Nautica.”</p><p>Nautica’s hand reached out, but she stopped just short of touching my shoulders and back because she saw me tense.</p><p>“Go ahead,” I said. “But avoid my spine.”</p><p>“Erogenous zone?” She frowned. “I’d like to think I would’ve noticed.”</p><p>I snorted. “More like instant irritation and enragement zone. The only person who can touch me there is Soundwave, and he can’t do it for long, but sometimes he can siphon the charge that builds up there off if he’s careful.”</p><p>“That’s weird.” Nautica’s nose scrunched up, but she rested her hand on my shoulder. “It doesn’t make sense that they built in that vulnerability, even if it’s a common characteristic of organic felines.”</p><p>“I wasn’t meant not to be vulnerable.” I shrugged a little. “I’m disposable and an experiment. It’s a wonder I wasn’t designed to break down. Or maybe I was. More importantly, they weren’t exactly concerned with not including traits that could make me look animalistic and stupid.”</p><p>“You’re <i>not</i> disposable.”</p><p>“I was when they made me,” I pointed out.</p><p>“I bet Soundwave doesn’t think so,” she said. “I know I don’t. I don’t understand you at all, though.”</p><p>“Don’t overthink it, Nautica. Conflict resolution through sex is a fine old Decepticon tradition. Sometimes there’s just a charge that builds up between people, whether or not they want it, and it’s either fight or frag each other. When there’s nothing really worth fighting about, you might as well frag. And after you apologised to me, we didn’t have anything left to fight about.”</p><p>“Are Decepticons always this unromantic?” Nautica groaned.</p><p>“We’re practical.” I licked her face, but lightly. Nobody likes to be slobbered on, unless it’s their spike. “It was fun,” I told her. “But I’m leaving as soon as we land, and you probably won’t see me again.”</p><p>Nautica got up and began to clean herself up. “Just…don’t hurt Swerve. I think he has a crush on you.”</p><p>“No, he doesn’t,” I said. “I know what it looks like when mechs want to frag me.”</p><p>“I’m not sure those are the same thing.” Nautica slipped out of the room and into her washrack. I sank into her recharge slab and went straight into defrag, do not pass Reboot, do not collect 2000 shanix.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~*~*~*~</p>
</div>The rendezvous was in the centre of town.<p>Megatron knew the town and I didn’t, so he walked with me. Rodimus allowed it, because he thought we had special goodbyes to say, or something. I’d said my goodbyes to everyone else the night before, or so I’d thought.</p><p>When we got to the park, we just kind of stood there. We looked like idiots. Some big purple flowering tree was doing its thing and lavender petals were getting everywhere. We were probably going to have to pick them out of our transformation seams for <i>cycles</i>.</p><p>I looked up at Megatron. I might not ever see him <i>alive</i> again.</p><p>“<i>Ravage</i>,” he said. It was just the one word, my name, but I heard everything he didn’t say. I held my hands out to him, palms up.</p><p>Gently, he took my hands, clasped them together between his, and held them over his spark chamber, just for an instant—and I was afraid he might ask me to stay. And I wouldn’t, but I was afraid I might want to. A little. Enough to wonder forever.</p><p>Our clasped hands were joined right over his stupid red badge. The sight of it made my optics water. I hated that thing. I hated that thing <i>so much</i>.</p><p>“This is so anime,” Swerve said to someone I couldn’t see. Great. We’d been followed. But I couldn’t be mad at Swerve of all people. Which was a good thing, because then he called out to me: “You can stay if you want to stay, Prom Queen!”</p><p>Megatron quirked a smile. “Go on,” he said. “Make me proud.” He let go of my hands.</p><p>I thumped the badge. “Rise up,” I hissed through my teeth, then instantly regretted that the last time I might ever touch him had been so rough. But Megatron was laughing, very softly.</p><p>Someone had walked up right behind me. I recognised the scent and the rhythm of the footfalls, but I was still feeling a little bit hazy. Still, I knew they had to be a friend because Megatron was standing right in front of me and was grinning right at them.</p><p>“Misfire,” said Megatron, with a nod. “Take care of her.”</p><p>Misfire was, in fact, the person behind me, and his expression was this weird mixture of pride and amazement and concern and confusion; he started to salute, but then stopped himself, and finally put his hand on my shoulder. “We will, uh…Sir?”</p><p>“I know,” said Megatron. “Soundwave would have your heads if you didn’t.” His expression was almost purely mischievous. “I’m nobody’s Lord and I’m not your captain. Megatron’s fine.”</p><p>“Okay,” said Misfire, and I think he tried to say ‘Megatron’, but he didn’t quite manage to.</p><p>Megatron nodded to both of us and walked away. I watched him, unable to let that be my last sight of him.</p><p>After Megatron had turned the corner, Swerve walked right up to us. “Don’t forget you have friends here, okay?”</p><p>“I won’t,” I said, and hugged him, which he wasn’t expecting; his whole face lit up, and I loved it. “Take care, and for frag’s sake, stop giving Riptide your keys. He hangs out with <i>Getaway</i>!”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Swerve muttered, and looked up at Misfire, falling silent at once. Misfire’s expression was kind of odd, too.</p><p>“This is my friend, Swerve. The bartender?” I turned to Swerve. “And this is my friend, Misfire, who’s going to give me a safe ride home.”</p><p>Misfire nodded. “I remember,” he said, and I wondered if he was okay, because he hadn’t made a joke of it when I’d told Swerve my ride would be safe.</p><p>“I want <i>wedding pictures</i>,” Swerve said, pointing at Misfire so directly I thought he might actually jab his abdominal plating.</p><p>“…what?” Misfire finally managed.</p><p>“Is or is not she going with you to get married to Soundwave?” Swerve demanded.</p><p>“Conjunxed,” I translated, rolling my optics. “Swerve, you’ve been watching too much TV again. Soundwave and I are not going to have a big…wedding.”</p><p>“The Pit you say, Rav,” Misfire replied, and put his hand back on my shoulder. “The entire faction—well, what’s left of it—has been waiting four million years for this. It’s going to be epic.” He grinned at Swerve. “I’ll take care of your picture needs, mate.”</p><p>“The entire faction is in tatters,” I muttered under my breath, “with frozen assets all over the place, as if taking all of our stuff will make us stop stealing from aliens. We do not have money for that sort of thing.”</p><p>“It’s good for morale,” said Misfire, “and Soundwave is absolutely not broke.”</p><p>That was probably true, I had to admit (though I didn’t admit it at all). Soundwave had money stashed away everywhere under a good few hundred aliases, and was also perfectly capable of unfreezing anything he didn’t much want to part with.</p><p>“I want his comm code,” Swerve told me. “And I want those pictures.”</p><p>“Give him my comm code,” said Misfire. The stupid purple petals were still floating in the air. They clashed with Swerve’s paint. </p><p>I should probably have saved the image, but I was still thinking about Megatron. When they found the Knights of Cybertron, I wouldn’t be there at his side. I wouldn’t be there when he died. “I’m happy to send you his comm code, Swerve. But I’m not so sure there are going to be pictures.”</p><p>“There better be,” Swerve said, and winked at me. “I’m not gonna say goodbye. See you later, Rav.” He turned on his heel and walked off.</p><p>I looked up at Misfire, feeling like I might have taken a wrong turn into a different reality. He was a little flustered, but he put his other hand on my other shoulder and turned me around to look down at me. “Cat. You’re more than half my height. What have those Autobots been <i>feeding</i> you?” he asked, before he picked me up in a full-body hug.</p><p>“Mostly standard rations,” I said into his shoulder, “though I had a little something from Caminus a few times.”</p><p>Misfire snorted and patted my back. “Let’s get you home,” he said, holding me up with one arm and taking my bags in his other hand. “The Boss has really missed you.”</p><p>I buried my face in his shoulder so that I wouldn’t be seen in case I started to cry, and his wings came up to shield me. “You have <i>no idea</i> how much I’ve missed <i>him</i>.”</p><p>“Oh, I think I have an idea,” Misfire said gently. “We have very explicit care and feeding instructions for you. Fortunately, while he can’t digitise energon treats, he sent us enough to get some badly needed work done on the ship and feed us all to the standard he means to keep you in. <i>Fresh</i> cheap takeout for all tonight!”</p><p>It felt strange to be laughing while trying not to sob. “You gonna replace Krok’s engex?”</p><p>“Already did. Well, technically it was your conjunx that did…but you know the drill, Cat.” He tightened his grip around me. </p><p>I let his scent waft over my vomeronasal sensors and sighed. It felt like I was halfway home already. “If Soundwave is already my conjunx, and I would be more than willing to agree that we’ve already done all four of the relevant acts millions of times, Misfire, why do I have to have a wedding?”</p><p>“To make it official,” Misfire said firmly. “So those chunderhelms of Galvatron’s stop dragging you. And also because <i>we could all really use a party right now</i>. We lost the war, Cat. But you two are the last true believers left from the old guard, and even the people who can’t get there will be able to get on the Big Conversation and <i>see</i> something’s happened that we can all celebrate.”</p><p>“All right.” He had a point. I nodded against his shoulder. “If that’s what Soundwave wants, anyway.”</p><p>“How could he not, getting you back after so long?” Misfire chuckled. “Emmy said she’d come out there and plan the whole thing, you know.”</p><p>I accepted my fate with a wistful smile. “You have to know that I don’t like the risks inherent in holding a big flashy ceremony when there are plenty of people who want us both dead. But if it’ll make people believe more in Soundwave and me, then I’ll do it.” It was my turn to vent. “But I want it known that I would be happy to declare and record our intention and the date of each Act with two witnesses, and that they could be you and Laserbeak, and then just lock ourselves in our suite for a decacycle.”</p><p>Misfire just laughed. “You could’ve done that, Cat, if you’d asked him even a vorn ago. But everything’s different now.”</p><p>“You have no idea,” I said, and he squeezed me.</p><p>“Give the faction their royal wedding, and then we’ll put Grimlock outside of your suite for a decacycle.”</p><p>“Frag, you sound like Thundercracker now.” I groaned, and then realised what he’d just said. “Also wow, I am out of the loop. Since when are the Dynobots ‘cons again?”</p><p>“About that,” Misfire said, as we boarded a transport out to the docks, just a jet and a cat and some bags, surrounded by a bunch of ordinary mechs just like us. Just trying to get by. “We got a new crew member. I was kinda hoping he’d remember you.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. make me a beast half as brave</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>You painted a target right on her back, and then <i>you let her leave</i>.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"...who's seen Jezebel?<br/>she was born to be the woman we could blame<br/>make me a beast half as brave,<br/>I'd be the same..."</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHf4XnjosiQ">Iron and Wine</a>, Jezebel</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Megatron came back to the ship, Rodimus was waiting for him in the conference room, and he looked <i>absolutely crestfallen</i>.</p><p>Megatron frowned. “You expected me to come back with her? You knew better.”</p><p>“I gave her a star,” Rodimus said.</p><p>“For overcoming her social anxiety. I know.” Megatron sat down in the conference room. “Thank you for not making a big deal of whether or not she was going to abandon ‘her evil ways’.” It was cutting, but he smiled when he said it.</p><p>Rodimus laughed, hollowly. “Well, she hasn’t,” he said, and ex-vented dramatically.</p><p>Megatron was almost tempted to pat his hand. “I think you can rest assured that she’s not going back to be an assassin again. For one thing, she has a book deal.”</p><p>Rodimus raised one eyebrow. “Don’t look so proud of yourself.”</p><p>“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have nothing to do with her book deal. Ultra Magnus won’t even let me write her a foreword,” Megatron said, very primly.</p><p>“I know you’re going to miss her too.”</p><p>“More than you,” Megatron said with a snort.  “She’s not your amica, is she?”</p><p>“Amica.” Rodimus gave him a sidewise look, but said nothing more on the subject.</p><p>“Amica,” Megatron repeated. “And because I’m <i>her</i> amica, I know she needed to go, Rodimus. I shouldn’t have kept her from her <i>conjunx endura</i>.”</p><p>Rodimus dropped his rust stick. “…what.”</p><p>Megatron gave him a look. The look said, ‘you are rash and impulsive and poorly educated, but you know <i>people</i>, so I know you know exactly what I am talking about, but feel free to go ahead and disappoint me by making me tell you explicitly.’</p><p>“We’ve had <i><b>Soundwave’s</b> conjunx</i> on this ship for <i>how long</i>?”</p><p>“I thought she wanted to leave him,” Megatron said diffidently. “And I was sure she’d want to leave him once that cassetticon coding was gone. I honestly should have known better, though. They were together when I <i>met</i> them.” He leaned back in his chair. “She came here to kill me.”</p><p>“<i>You know</i> she could never have done <i><b>that</b></i>!” Rodimus snapped.</p><p>“I’m sure Soundwave did, too.” Megatron smiled. “I’m satisfied with what happened. He tried to make her choose between us, even if Galvatron did goad him into it. And she chose herself.”</p><p>“Did she, though?” Rodimus ex-vented again. “Did she, really?”</p><p>“You know she did.” Megatron looked straight into his optics. “And you know you know it. You just have a Ravage-shaped hole in your spark. You suffer whenever anyone leaves, no matter how good their reasons are. I mean no disrespect, but if you’d been a Decepticon, you’d have been one of the captains who ‘faced your whole crew on a regular basis.”</p><p>Rodimus glared at him indignantly.</p><p>“Your imagination has gone rather florid,” said Megatron. “When we performed that ritual, we held hands and daisy-chained our wrist port cables.”</p><p>“We.” Rodimus didn’t repeat it. “You.” Then he glanced at the door. “Her. Soundwave. And her.”</p><p>Megatron shrugged. Rodimus was more right about <i>that</i> than he knew, but it wasn’t his business and he wouldn’t be happier for knowing about it. “Arguably, things got a whole lot worse when the practise fell out of favour. It wasn’t half as lascivious as you think. With that many people plugged in, it more or less defaults to being a spiritual experience.”</p><p>“I can see that,” Rodimus said, reluctantly. “I just can’t picture Decepticons trusting each other enough to do that.”</p><p>Megatron quirked a smile. “You see why I say things got worse when the practise fell out of favour?”</p><p>“Primus. We all thought that ‘army of lovers’ recruiting slogan was just propaganda.” Rodimus rolled his eyes. “I so did not need to know that.”</p><p>“She had to go.” Megatron shrugged. “Think about it. What do you think happens if she <i>doesn’t</i> go back to Sanctuary?”</p><p>“I don’t know.” Rodimus picked up an energon cube and swirled a fresh rust stick through it. “You’re the one who knows those people.”</p><p>Megatron just cocked his head to one side and studied him. After a moment, he started to squirm.</p><p>“Stop that. Okay. Soundwave needs her. Why do we want <i>Soundwave</i> to get what he needs?” Rodimus gave him a truly impressive side-eye.</p><p>“You know that already,” said Megatron. “If I have to draw you a diagram of the remaining faction leaders, and where their loyalties go, I’ll be even sadder than I am right now. And so will you. Don’t make me.”</p><p>Rodimus rolled his optics. “Yeah.” He pulled air in through all of his vents. “I know you’re the one who published her work for her.”</p><p>“I’d be interested to see you show your work on that,” Megatron said idly, and took a rust stick himself. “Very interested.”</p><p>“For frag’s sake, you did it right under my nose. We were alone on the ship when all those files went up.” Rodimus scowled. “I don’t like it when you hide things from me.”</p><p>“I know,” said Megatron, and smiled again. “The Big Conversation has server nodes scattered from Ankokuyousai to Io. There are time dilation factors, and there was a DDOS attack on the site within breems of the upload. Ultimately, if anyone knows when those files were put up, it’s either Biteback or Esmeral.”</p><p>Rodimus rolled his optics again. “You painted a target right on her back and then <i>you let her leave</i>. Whatever happened to realising your life’s work was unsalvageable?”</p><p>Megatron ex-vented heavily. “Nothing whatsoever. My life’s work <i>is</i> unsalvageable. And every night I talked with her, or him, about that, in hand or in words, for breems or for half a shift, Ravage made it very clear to me, in no uncertain terms, that I could pass judgement on my own work, but I did not have the right to tell her that <i>her</i> life’s work was unsalvageable.”</p><p>“You told them all to stand down.” Rodimus looked ever so slightly betrayed, and this time not just on Ravage’s behalf.</p><p>Megatron nodded. “I was wearing a red badge when I said it and giving a speech that any person who’s actually <i>read my books</i> would be able to tell had been written by someone else. I understand why <i>Optimus</i> thought the Decepticons would accept that from me. I even thought he might be right, at the time. But I don’t understand why <i>you</i> ever believed that.”</p><p>“Are you saying you didn’t mean it?”</p><p>Megatron just stared at him. “Of course, I meant it. But I doubt it took five astroseconds for Soundwave to decide that he wanted me assassinated if I wasn’t planning a coup. Soundwave is a kind spark. He may have thought of it as putting me out of my misery.”</p><p>“Maybe she was better off with her social anxiety,” Rodimus muttered, half to himself. “What do you mean, <i>Soundwave’s</i> a kind spark?”</p><p>“Have <i>you</i> ‘faced him?”</p><p>Rodimus winced. “Of course not.”</p><p>“She wouldn’t be with him if he weren’t kind. And because he is kind, he will never be able to lead the faction without her. If somebody has to lead it, would you rather see anyone else do it?”</p><p>“Primus,” Rodimus vented. Clearly he didn’t want to admit what Megatron knew he’d been able to see.</p><p>“Don’t forget that even though she does have social anxiety, not to mention post-traumatic stress, and you have apparently become rather fond of her despite your nearly minimal interaction, she <i>was</i> a saboteur, and an assassin. She can take care of herself, Rodimus.” Megatron nibbled at the tip of his rust stick. He was hungrier than he’d thought he was. “I wasn’t the one who came up with that ‘army of lovers’ line, either. She wrote a lot of propaganda.”</p><p>“I can see them winning,” Rodimus finally admitted, a far-off look in his eyes. “Spectacularly, actually. I wouldn’t have thought so before, but…”</p><p>“She went down on the Vis Vitalis. I didn’t know what was going to happen when I made her go without her mesh, but I was impressed. A person who can make people ignore her is a person who can also refuse to let herself be ignored.” Megatron smiled at him. “I know you’re proud of her now. You’ll be prouder still if she takes out Galvatron, Shockwave and the DJD, then walks up to the Prime and our gracious King and forces them to acknowledge her. We could have <i>genuine peace</i>.”</p><p>“I’m starting to think you’ve been planning this all along.” Rodimus frowned.</p><p>Megatron shrugged. “I wasn’t going to let her murder me in my sleep. And she would have, knowing the DJD was after me, if she had believed that I was too broken to deal with them. She would have considered it ‘a kinder death than I’d have had otherwise’ with a bonus ‘saving all of your new friends’ lives’. But no, I haven’t been grooming her to be the Decepticon heir for the last decavorn.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. words half-spoken, and thoughts unclear</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>I was starting to feel unbelievably buoyant. It wasn’t just the engex, or the noodles, or the absence of the shoulder pain. It was the feeling of <i>not being judged</i>.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"...maybe you'll find direction around some corner where it's been waiting to meet you<br/>what do you want me to do, to watch for you while you're sleeping?<br/>then please don't be surprised when you find me dreaming, too..."</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxjvo4BRf-Y">The Grateful Dead</a>, Box of Rain</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Krok looked <i>tired</i>. I hadn’t seen him in years, I realised, but still. Nonetheless, he gave us a cautious smile when we boarded. I think he must have thought I was asleep, because he looked at Misfire and asked “How is…”</p><p>“<i>She’s</i> fine,” Misfire said, and set me down gently on my feet.</p><p>I felt weirdly self-conscious at having wheels attached to my body under Krok’s not-actually-all-that-judgemental gaze, because I hadn’t had them before. Sure, they were elegant little things, but they were still signs that I do use my T-cog, even if what I mostly use it for is switching between biped and quadruped, which both have advantages. “You’ve grown,” he said, and that was all he said about it.</p><p>“I suppose you could say that.” I smiled.</p><p>Misfire shook his head. “Still can’t believe you didn’t go for a flyer frame,” he said with amusement. “Or can the Autobots just not do them?”</p><p>I flushed energon pink, or rather I would have if my derma hadn’t been black. I would rather have not discussed this in front of Krok. It seemed rude to talk about stuff he might find religiously offensive right in front of him like that. But then again, Misfire knew him better than I did. “The car I turn into is called a Jaguar. I thought it was funny. And pretty.”</p><p>I have also never wanted to fly, which everyone (except Krok) thinks is weird. I like having something under my paws that’s not air.</p><p>“You look well.” Krok ex-vented. “Done with Autobot shenanigans?”</p><p>I nodded, because I was seriously amazed at how relaxed I was starting to feel now that I knew I wouldn’t ever have to go back. “Yeah. Done with Autobots in general, really.”</p><p>“Good.” Krok patted me on the shoulder, awkwardly, then turned to Misfire. “They’re still arguing about who’s going to give up their room. I’ll probably give in and stay with Spinister. Mine’s probably the only clean room on this ship, anyway.”</p><p>I’d never spent the night on the Weak Anthropic Principle before, but I’d been on it before, and I knew—I’d known, going in—that it was a small ship. (That was one of the things that appealed to me about it at the time.) “You don’t have to do that, Krok,” I said. “I can stay with Misfire, if he doesn’t mind. I’m not here to inconvenience anyone.”</p><p>“If you don’t mind Grimlock,” Misfire said. “He’s not what he once was, but he <i>is</i> getting better.”</p><p>Right. Grimlock. I’d gathered from context that he was the ‘new crew member’, but even so I was surprised. “Pfft. I think the real question is does Grimlock mind me? I can outrun him any day, but if he sits on me while I’m in defragmentation, it’s not gonna be pretty.”</p><p>“He wouldn’t do that,” Misfire assured me, “and he has his own…sleeping area.”</p><p>Krok made a coughing noise to get our attention. “I was concerned about appearances,” he said, and shrugged. “Soundwave’s paying us more for this than we’ve made in a decivorn. We can’t treat you like our leader’s consort <i>should</i> be treated, but I thought we could give you some privacy. Also, Misfire’s a slob, you know. And he’ll steal your engex.”</p><p>Misfire looked a bit aggrieved, but there wasn’t much he could say. He is a slob, and he does steal fuel. Though he’d never stolen more than one or two of the treats Soundwave made me, back when we were all working together. Unlike some people.</p><p>(Starscream had been in the habit of taking the whole box frequently enough that Soundwave had drugged all the blue ones in the box with a purgative once, just for him, knowing he’d eat the whole box in one sitting and spend the rest of the day running back and forth between the washracks and the recycler. It had been <i>epic</i>.)</p><p>At any rate, none of the things I already knew about Misfire were going to bother me. And I had liked Grimlock just fine when he had been one of us. “If I can tolerate Megatron being a neat freak, I can tolerate Misfire being a slob. And I’ve always known about that. Besides. I was on that ship for groons before anyone knew I was there. That was all the <i>privacy</i> I can take for a while.”</p><p>Krok nodded. “Well, at least it’ll shut Crankcase up for half a breem,” he said with a wry little smile. “I’m sorry. You must be tired. I haven’t even found you a place to sit down.”</p><p>I groaned. “Krok. You’ve known me for eons. Please don’t be weird about this because I’m with Soundwave officially now and also we figured out that some of my mood swings were actually gender swings. <i>I’m still the same person</i>.”</p><p>“That’s what I’m ever so slightly afraid of,” Krok said, with a chuckle. “<i>Please</i> tell me you are going to settle down now, Ravage.”</p><p>He said it with laughter, but I knew it was a completely serious question. Hopefully Misfire hadn’t told him that I’d commed him from Nautica’s bed while she was recharging (or so I had thought at the time). And even more hopefully, hopefully no-one on Lost Light security had released any video from Megatron’s surveillance feed as revenge porn. Soundwave would’ve scrubbed that, though. As long as he saw it before Swindle did. One could hope. I was doing a lot of hoping, suddenly.</p><p>“Are you asking me about my <i>intentions</i>, Krok? Yes, I am going to make an honest mech out of Soundwave.” I ex-vented, trying hard not to roll my optics.</p><p>“See that you let him make one of you,” Krok said quietly. “<i>Please</i>.”</p><p>I could hear in my head what Megatron would’ve said about that. He would’ve told me not to give up any of the prerogatives of rulership, because otherwise it’d look like I was accepting more constraints on myself in the interest of being A Credit To My Frame-Type. What Krok was trying to tell me, in part, was that until they got to know us better, people were going to think of me as Soundwave’s consort and of him as the real leader, and that people would respect both of us less if they continued to think that I was faithless and he was too besotted to say anything.</p><p>I did not particularly care for either of those arguments. But I didn’t feel like complaining about it. I was done with being manipulated by Megatron, and I probably wouldn’t even see him alive again. I wouldn’t even have bothered with Nautica’s proposition—despite all the fun I’d had with it—if Soundwave had been there.</p><p>My optics were fogging again, and leaking on top of it.  “I will,” I said, though my voice was half caught in my throat. “And not for the sake of the faction. I don’t <i>want</i> anyone else anymore.”</p><p>“I believe you,” Misfire said, very quietly. “It’s all right, Cat.”</p><p>“Good,” said Krok, and patted my shoulder very awkwardly, as if he’d been having the Talk with a squeaky-geared new recruit to his troop, fresh out of the factory, and it had been just as much of an ordeal for him as it was for the victim.</p><p>It probably had been.</p><p>Awkward having peaked, Krok preceded us into the communal living area. “No need to switch rooms. She’s staying with Misfire.”</p><p>“And Grimlock?” Fulcrum cracked up.</p><p>Before I could even sit down, Crankcase called out, “There she is! There’s the trophy wife! How are you doing, Trophy?”</p><p>Krok facepalmed. I laughed out loud. Which was probably a better choice, except that Crankcase was probably going to be calling me that for the rest of the trip, now. Oh, well. It’d be better than him thinking he could call me ‘Cat’, just because Misfire’s allowed to.</p><p>“Hello to you too, Crankcase. I’m fine.” Of all the Scavengers, I actually knew Crankcase the least well. Fulcrum was newer, but Fulcrum was, well, not Crankcase. Misfire shoved a pile of junk off the couch so I could sit down and Spinister pulled out a can of engex from somewhere and gave it to me.</p><p>“You’re braver than I am,” Fulcrum said as Misfire investigated the cartons of freshly acquired take-out.</p><p>I shrugged. “I won’t blow anything up if he accidentally steps on me.”</p><p>“Rude,” Fulcrum said, but he laughed and tossed me a carton. “I think this is something you liked the last time we saw you.”</p><p>Spinister frowned. “But I also don’t want the cat to go squish,” he said plaintively.</p><p>“Relax. I won’t go squish.” I opened the carton. It was, in fact, something I liked. Whatever whimsical clanger came up with the idea of turning energon gel into noodles, I owed them thanks. The manganese-flavoured coolant reduction was amazing.</p><p>“So,” said Fulcrum, “why did Soundwave pick <i>us</i>? Not that I’m complaining or anything, but it’s weird.”</p><p>“He thinks we’ll get her to the church on time,” Spinister muttered into his engex.</p><p>Krok and Misfire exchanged meaningful glances with each other and then with me. Apparently, the rest of the crew did not know they’d been Soundwave’s operatives for a very long time and they still remained on call.</p><p>“Maybe it’s because you’re not an <i>obvious</i> answer to the question ‘To whom would Soundwave entrust his intended conjunx?’” I offered. “But I also commed Misfire and begged him to get me out of Autobot hell, and then I told Soundwave, who offered to pay for it?” I turned to Spinister. “What is a church and why do I need to go there?”</p><p>Spinister shrugged. “Just something I heard once,” he said, and peered at my shoulder. Without any warning at all, he clamped one hand down on it—I would’ve decked him if I hadn’t known it was him—and another on the back of my neck.</p><p>Then I felt something <i>twist</i>, and I almost dropped my food, because it <i>really fucking hurt</i>.</p><p>Everyone was, of course, staring at us, probably because of the noise I’d made.</p><p>But then it didn’t hurt at all, and I realised that it <i>had</i> been hurting. For days. “Thanks,” I said. “Could’ve warned me, though.”</p><p>“Needed you not to brace yourself.” Spinister shrugged. “Protoform still expanding, exerted mass effect on cervicothoracic armature.”</p><p>“I thought Megatron fixed that.” He’d been gentler about it, but maybe that was the problem.</p><p>“Ongoing process.” Spinister laughed. “One more decacycle.”</p><p>I was starting to feel unbelievably buoyant. It wasn’t just the engex, or the noodles, or the absence of the shoulder pain. It was the feeling of <i>not being judged</i>.</p><p>Even positive judgements are still running assessments. I had a Rodimus Star because I’d <i>surprised</i> him.</p><p>I’d been the only Decepticon on the ship, and the only beastformer everyone knew about, and people were constantly trying to figure out what my relationship with Megatron actually <i>was</i>, and some people wanted to pet me, and other people wanted to avoid me, and none of it had anything to do with who I really was. I was constantly being compared to what people expected of Decepticons, or beastformers, or the secret lover of an evil overlord, or the Infamous Decepticon Assassin and Saboteur.</p><p>These people all knew who I was, more or less. That was why Crankcase thought it so funny that I was a ‘trophy wife’ now.</p><p>And absolutely nothing here was wired for sound. Not that I wanted to get up to anything here that I didn’t want broadcast throughout the galaxy, but it meant I didn’t have to care if my finish got scuffed or my optics were dull because I was overtired.</p><p>I was going to miss Swerve.</p><p>I was even going to miss Rodimus and Nautica, and Velocity, and...some others.</p><p>And Megatron, of course, despite our differences.</p><p>But I felt freer than I had since I’d left Soundwave’s side on Luna-2, and when I finally broke down in tears in the middle of playing a silly video game, just because that part of my life was finally <i>over</i>, I got a lot of very respectful, well-telegraphed hugs before I was led to the ridiculously oversized recharge slab in Misfire’s room, where I fell into defragmentation as soon as I closed my optics.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. the mech you do not know (the femme you cannot see)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Stop looking for me.<br/>Stop looking through me.</p><p>I'm right here--can't you see me?</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"Am I not pretty enough?<br/>Is my heart too broken?<br/>Do I cry too much?<br/>Am I too outspoken?<br/>Don't I make you laugh?<br/>Should I try it harder?<br/>Why do you see right through me?"</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdflARH06dY">Kasey Chambers</a>, "Not Pretty Enough"</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <i>As posted to <a href="https://tfwiki.net/wiki/The_Big_Conversation">The Big Conversation</a><br/>
by <b>@cybercatastrophe</b>.</i>
</p><p><i>Site Administrator <b>@EmeraldWings</b> has verified that this post was actually made by <b>@cybercatastrophe</b>.</i><br/>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</p><p>I loved the shadows when they hid me.<br/>
I let them wrap themselves around me like a wedding cape.<br/>
I walked on four feet, down at your knees,<br/>
And kept beneath your optics and your notice<br/>
Because I had learned it was dangerous to be beautiful.</p><p>Once in a great while, I showed myself.<br/>
I marched arm-in-arm on the barricades with my lovers and sang.<br/>
I posed for a portrait to show the world pride.<br/>
I danced on a pole in a palace on New Kaon<br/>
Where no-one who wasn’t bound to us all could see me<br/>
And no-one who didn’t love me could touch me.</p><p>But still I padded through shadows at night.<br/>
And the people who hurt us all fell,<br/>
Never knowing what hit them.</p><p>But now that you’ve all seen me dance<br/>
With the femme whose helm was on fire<br/>
And now that you’ve all read my poetry<br/>
Still you don’t see me.</p><p>I broke up with the shadows who loved me<br/>
I dropped my veils and my cape,<br/>
Slipped out of my gown of fine mesh<br/>
And spat out all my lanthanum chips.<br/>
And still you don’t see me.</p><p>Stop looking for all of the things I have been.<br/>
Stop trying to follow the tracks that I never left behind.<br/>
I’m standing right here, being more than the sum of those parts;<br/>
And you can’t stop the signal my love has been blasting from Destron’s heart.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. the no hard feelings tour</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>"So right now he's stuck on this ship with - I'm not even kidding - with the biggest bunch of <b>NO HOPERS</b> you could ever imagine..." - Skullcrusher, The Self-Hating Decepticon, from MTMTE #45.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>“Long live the pioneers<br/>Rebels and mutineers<br/>Go forth and have no fear<br/>Come close and lend an ear…”</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8j741TUIET0">X Ambassadors</a>, Renegades</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I dreamed of a world in which things had gone very differently; a world in which we were ruling Cybertron justly from a palace in Kaon. I was recharging in this dream. I was neatly tucked between Soundwave’s body and Megatron’s, pleasantly exhausted, content to feel safe, loved and adored, and completely immobile.</p><p>I woke up in reality to find myself the smallest person in a berth that, while large, would really not have been big enough for three people even if one of them hadn’t had wings and the other one hadn’t been <i>Grimlock</i>.</p><p>I was, however, no less immobile.</p><p>Grimlock opened one eye, which was uncomfortably close to my own eye. “Me Grimlock,” the big bot said. He was apparently stuck in his alt-mode.</p><p>“Ravage,” I said. We knew each other, though it had been a good few million years. I had liked him during the years that Soundwave and I had been helping Megatron organise the gladiators. I had been rather less thrilled with him when he signed up with the Autobots at Ironfell, but what could you do? The Dynobots had been excellent fighters; of course the Autobots had wanted them, although I’d never understood why they agreed to support them.</p><p>Grimlock nodded. “<i>Sneaky cat</i>,” he said, and started to pat my head—but he stopped when he saw me flinch.</p><p>Misfire sat bolt upright, his eyes wide, which was only a little alarming considering one of his arms had been under my neck. “You remember Ravage, big guy?”</p><p>“Me Grimlock,” said Grimlock, nodding.</p><p>“Is that why you decided to sleep in here, mate? To say hello to Ravage?” Misfire’s expression was positively beatific. “He has his own sleeping area, but he doesn’t always use it.”</p><p>Grimlock shrugged. “Sneaky cat,” he repeated.</p><p>“He’s not wrong,” I said as I rearranged myself in a sitting position, laughing partly because it was funny and partly out of relief that he didn’t bear me any ill-will.</p><p>“Indeed he is not,” said Misfire, and grabbed something out of the pile of junk on the nightstand. It was a necklace, which he unceremoniously dropped over my head. It was a very cheap piece of jewellery, and if it hadn't been silvery rather than golden it would probably have turned green, because it wasn’t new. The stone in the pendant, which appeared to be a piece of glass but probably wasn’t, changed colours; it had been clear when he’d put it on me, but now it was deep onyx black.</p><p>“Aha,” said Misfire. “Feeling butch today, are we?”</p><p>“…what?” I blinked.</p><p>“Spinister made that for you to wear while you’re here. And after you go, if you want. So that nobody gets it wrong. Since you change and all.”</p><p>“How does <i>that</i> work? Are you sure that it’s not just a mood pendant? They sell those on the internet, although I’m pretty sure they’re fake.” I didn’t mind wearing a necklace on the ship. If it worked, it would save everyone embarrassment, although I usually don’t correct people if they get it wrong. Most of the time, it was Soundwave who told people, because it bothered <i>him</i> more than it bothered me. (He said that it did bother me, and he might have even been right, but as a beastformer, I was happy with either one of he or she, because it wasn’t it or they. Our genders hadn’t <i>mattered</i> to the upper castes.)</p><p>“Spin made it.” Misfire shrugged. “You can ask Spin but I can’t guarantee that the answer will make any sense.”</p><p>“That’s true. Thanks I guess,” I said, and thought about hugging him, but I had been hugged enough.</p><p>He grinned at me, then turned to Grimlock. “Can you say Ravage?”</p><p>“Sneaky cat,” said Grimlock with a friendly smile that would have been much less alarming if he hadn’t had so many teeth to be showing.</p><p>“His name is Ravage,” said Misfire firmly.</p><p>“Sneaky cat from arena,” said Grimlock.</p><p>I gave Grimlock a big thumbs up. If he was going to remember me, that was the best of all possible worlds. “I don’t care,” I said. “I just want the washracks and recycler. Please, let me up?”</p><p>Misfire got out of my way so I could get out of bed. “I want him to learn your actual name, though. He can write the first letter of his!”</p><p>“He remembers where he met me,” I said with a shrug.</p><p>Misfire sighed plaintively. “I guess…I guess that’s a good thing.”</p><p>“I’ll take it over T-O-R-R-A-X-I-S.” I sucked air through my teeth. “What <i>happened</i> to him?” It was probably a bad question to ask, knowing I needed the recycler, but…the answer turned out to be shorter than expected.</p><p>“I don’t know,” Misfire said, a little sadly. “We found him like this. Go, though, get yourself clean. I know you had a long day yesterday, so we let you sleep for a while.”</p><p>“How long is a while?” I asked, hoping he wouldn’t say something alarming like ‘a megacycle’.</p><p>Misfire shook his head. “Two shifts. Not that we really have shifts officially here.”</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~*~*~*~</p>
</div>I was standing in the washracks under the running solvent when I got the top priority ping to my comm. His voice was soft, perhaps because he was so far away. “Ravage: is loved.”<p>“Ravage: is wet,” I said, then I laughed. “In the washracks, I mean. Not that you’d have to say much more to get that result, hearing your voice for the first time in so very long. Soundwave: is also loved.”</p><p>“Do not forgive me yet.” That sounded…odd. But I didn’t feel anything alarming through the spark-bond.</p><p>“No?” I laughed gently. “You do something else I’m going to be hacked off about?”</p><p>“No. Forgiveness tastes better in person,” he said. “Ravage: has things to say first. Soundwave: repentant, but knowing that apologies also taste better in person.”</p><p>That was a very charming and entirely Soundwave to say that. I burst into tears in spite of myself. “<i>Want you</i>,” I said; it came out in a keening whine, and considered applications of the detachable shower head versus the likelihood that I’d have company before I finished.</p><p>“Soon.” A shiver of bliss ran up my spine, through the bond. <i>What the Pit was he doing, oh <b>stars</b> that was good…</i> “Miss you too.”</p><p>The shower head won. I knew that after spending a few million years merging sparks there was a very good scientific explanation for how he could do this to me, but it was still a very new and unexpected trick. “You need to spike me as soon as I get home,” I said. “As soon as you get the door closed behind me. We can do it against the door.”</p><p>He laughed. “Ravage: will want to talk. But yes, right after. <i>Frag you right through the berth</i>.”</p><p>It felt like being spiked by a ghost. There was nothing whatsoever in my valve, but my callipers felt like they were clenching on <i>something</i>, and that something felt a lot like Soundwave does. I could feel the cool slide of data cables embracing me, seeking out ports through my plating. Why had we not been doing this since I’d left? I was making uncontrollable lewd noises and sure I was going to walk out of the washracks to a standing ovation.</p><p>“There,” he said, and his vocals stabilised, which meant he wasn’t nervous anymore. “Spray that anterior node for me, brightspark.” His vents caught in his throat. “<i>I remember what it tastes like.</i>”</p><p>I overloaded on the spot. I heard a half-strangled cry from his end, and had to brace myself against the wall for the second one, and he growled as I came for him: “<i><b>Mine</b></i>.”</p><p>By the time I’d recovered, the solvent had begun to run cold. Fortunately, I was mostly clean. “<i>Yours</i>,” I said, rinsing the effluvia away. “<i>Absolutely <b>yours</b></i>...”</p><p>There’d been a time in my life when I couldn’t handle hearing anyone speak of me like I was something they owned. But now, when he called me his own, it went right to my valve. I was going to have to figure out a way to take his comms in private. There had to be someplace on this ship that nobody went if they didn’t absolutely have to.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~*~*~*~</p>
</div>There was no standing ovation. However, Crankcase paused the show he and Fulcrum were watching, which for some reason had been turned up quite loud. “How’s Soundwave, Trophy?”<p>Krok buried his face in his hands.</p><p>“He’s fine,” I said, and stretched out on the other couch. It was that horrible Self-Hating Decepticon guy they were watching. “I hate that guy.”</p><p>“Really?” Fulcrum stared at me. “But he’s hilarious! You have yet to hear his Starscream/Ratbat routine—”</p><p>“He is, objectively, terrible,” said Krok, peering over to look at my necklace. “He’s also said things about Ravage that he shouldn’t have to listen to right now.”</p><p>“I don’t want to hear a fragging word about Ratbat,” I snapped. “He’s dead and I’m not and that’s the way I wanted it. Even Starscream doesn’t deserve—”</p><p>Crankcase was staring at me. “We’re not playing the Ratbat bit, Fulcrum.”</p><p>“Thank you,” I said.</p><p>Fulcrum sighed. “I’m new to you. I keep forgetting you <i>know people</i>.”</p><p>“Shut up about Ratbat.” Crankcase glared at him. I wasn’t sure what he knew and I didn’t want to think of him knowing, but I sure wouldn’t question it.</p><p>Crankcase tossed me an energy bar made of crushed silicates with a gelled energon icing, and I opened it up and ate it. “Thought you could use that after your <i>vocal performance</i>.” He snickered. I rolled my eyes at him.</p><p>“Let’s talk,” said Krok, and I was really glad my plate is too dark to see energon flush through, because I was completely embarrassed. I hadn’t realised how bad the soundproofing apparently was on the washracks.</p><p>“I’m sorry—” I blurted, but he stuck out his hands and shook them violently, like he was warding off radio revenants or something.</p><p>“Everyone does it,” he said, not meeting my eyes. “Nobody cares. But, Soundwave spoke to me too. We might run into some problems if we don’t plan the route carefully.” At that, he grinned. “I <i>like</i> having to make actual plans!”</p><p>“Oh.” I followed him into the captain’s room and sat down at the table. “So how long is this trip going to be?”</p><p>“We’ll get you home as soon as we can,” Krok said, “but you know we can’t just do a straight shot back to the Sol system direct from the last place the <i>Lost Light</i> landed without attracting attention.” He shrugged. “Do you have <i>any</i> idea how much Galvatron hates you, Ravage?”</p><p>“Let’s see. Galvatron hates beastformers, he’s basically a secret Neo-Functionalist, he lied his aft off to Soundwave about the peace process…the only part of Megatron’s teachings he respects is that strength should be able to find its own level regardless of other personal characteristics, and he sure as scrap doesn’t believe that there’s anything wrong with challenging some of the strong harder than others, and then there’s the part where anyone claimed by what he defines as a more powerful mech is essentially their property and should behave as such—” I shrugged. “I think I get it.”</p><p>“I hope you do,” Krok said more quietly, and looked at me like I was a new recruit again. “We do not have peace yet, Ravage. We’ve gone from being at war with the Autobots to being at war with each other. Soundwave could probably have won against Galvatron on his military strength alone, but now you’ve turned this into a fight for the sparks of the Decepticons <i>as a people</i>. That means you’ve lost your conjunx some of the stronger military leaders who might have followed him otherwise. The people who want what Galvatron wants. I don’t know if Deathsaurus and I are going to be able to make up for that, but we’re going to do our best, because otherwise you and Soundwave are going to have to take Prime up on his offers.”</p><p>“I can’t go to him. And Soundwave wouldn’t.” I swallowed. “You don’t know what there is between us and him.” I glanced down at the floor. “Also, I don’t think we want those people. They’d be backstabbing gasholes like Starscream and Scorponok, and who needs that?”</p><p>“If Galvatron takes Soundwave out, you’ll die at your own hand, or you won’t die clean. He has to destroy you in a way that will discredit all your teachings and beliefs. To him, you’re an animal who rose through the ranks on her back in the berths of the most powerful Decepticons in the old Conclave, and you’ve played them off against each other for the past four million years. And now, he thinks, you dare to think you’re a leader and have ideas.” Krok took a swing of his engex. “If you won’t surrender to Prime, then you <i>absolutely can’t lose</i>.”</p><p>I knew what he was getting at. He was getting at Ratbat having the last laugh at me, through Galvatron’s agency. It was not going to happen. “I do understand what you mean, but you’re forgetting Soundwave has a technological edge as well as military support. Where are Galvatron’s people going to get new communications and logistics technology? The Galactic Council? They just love Decepticons! The Autobots?”</p><p>“I just want you to be very, very careful. And to understand that while I have you on my ship, <i>I’m</i> also going to be extremely careful. You’re our Voice now, Ravage. We’ll get you to Soundwave as soon as we can, but also as safely as we can, which means that we’re going to be taking a more circuitous path than either you or he would like. He understands the need for it, though, and I hope you do, too. If we—or any other even nominally Decepticon vessel—went straight from the Lost Light’s last known location to Sanctuary Station, Galvatron would know that it was your chariot. And he’d make sure that you didn’t make it there. And not only would we not survive that, I don’t think Soundwave would, either.”</p><p>I thought about the Functionist Universe in which I had been scrapped and Soundwave had turned his own T-cog into a bomb, and I wasn’t about to argue.</p><p>As nervous as he seemed, though, Krok seemed happier than he’d been the last time I’d seen him. “You are enjoying this,” I said.</p><p>“I’m enjoying having purpose again. I don’t know what we’ll do with ourselves when you two take over and there really is no more war, but…” He shrugged. “For now it will do.”</p><p>“You’ll think of something.” I sighed, and took his hand. “There’s more to life than this, Krok. When I was very young, we used to take over old buildings in the Dead End, buildings that people officially owned, but had just been left to rot. We’d fix things up, let people live there. That’s one of the reasons we were in trouble. I taught Soundwave to dance. Vertically, even.”</p><p>Krok laughed. “Don’t talk like that, though—”</p><p>“I wouldn’t. He was the one who taught <i>me</i> to dance, horizontally.” I shrugged. “He taught me what pleasure was, actually. I certainly didn’t learn that from the Senators.” I was sure my cheeks were burning. “There will be dancing in our revolution, Krok. There will be things to do after the war. There will be healing, there will be teaching, there will be love. There will be restoration and recovery and hope. Whether we ever go back to Cybertron or not, we will have homes of our own and a place that is ours.”</p><p>I took his other hand. “I promise you this,” I said softly. “There will be a place for you, and it can be in our self-defence forces if that’s what you still want to do, but if you want another kind of life, you can have that as well.”</p><p>Krok took my hands and placed them gently in my lap, then let go, and then he got down on one knee. “I and mine are yours, Voice of Destron,” he said very quietly.</p><p>I leaned over and kissed his forehead. “Okay. Good. But only remember: I am still your <i>friend</i>.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. nothing's gonna change my world</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Megatron is nostalgic. Optimus came back to Cybertron. Rodimus is afraid. Swerve wants to take a vacation.</p><p>And Soundwave wants to talk to the annoying neighbours, but he can't find their house anymore.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"Words are flowing out<br/>Like endless rain into a paper cup<br/>They slither while they pass<br/>They slip away across the universe..."</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQfP37Au-T0">Rufus Wainwright</a>, Across the Universe (cover)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The observation deck on the <i>Lost Light</i> was strangely quiet. It was a good place to sit and write poetry when you were tired of looking at the four walls of your habsuite and wishing desperately for the soft, sarcastic voice of someone you loved and would probably never see again. A good place to wonder why you lied to him about the energon. A good place to wonder if she knew she left the briefcase behind. A good place to look out at the stars and think about all of the planets you’ve wrecked.</p><p>An even better place not to think of a small house on a long-forgotten colony world, and a garden of flowers that were chosen for their scents by someone who knew scent better than anyone else could, doubtlessly long overgrown and either all dead or spread well past the courtyard.</p><p>The best place of all not to think of your regretted conquests, and the little one, the little mech who’d let you frag him on the former planetary ruler’s desk, the one who’d held still while you licked all the blood that wasn’t his own from his muzzle.</p><p>“Optimus went back to Cybertron.”</p><p>Megatron looked up to see Rodimus standing there in the dim starlight. “Am I supposed to be surprised?”</p><p>Rodimus’ lip-plates were doing that quivering, petulant thing again. It made him look even younger than he was, and it made him look scared. Megatron groaned very softly.</p><p>“What’s he done now?”</p><p>Rodimus shook his head. “He messaged me. He wanted to know why I let her leave. He didn’t say a thing about you, by the way. I told him I let her leave because she wanted to go. He said it was a bad decision.”</p><p>“Ah, yes.” Megatron nodded. “That was the other reason I didn’t ask her to stay. It did occur to me that when the judgement was pronounced, especially if I were already dead, someone might take a wild notion to put her on trial, too, book deal or no. I agreed to let them do what they wanted with me. I didn’t make that agreement for her.”</p><p>“He said I didn’t know her as well as he does.” Rodimus’ optics were wide, wider than the lack of light would have ever explained.</p><p>“Well, that’s true.” Megatron flipped his datapad back on and projected an image onto the screen, directly from his own mind. It was the same image that had made such an impression on Nautica, except it hadn’t been censored. Four revolutionaries, arms locked around each other, singing on a barricade. “Do you see him there?”</p><p>Rodimus closed his optics. “I knew he was part of all that. But.” He ex-vented. “Someone kept putting her back on the list for prisoner exchange and release. We always told them she wasn’t a prisoner here. We told <i>Soundwave</i> that.”</p><p>“<i>You</i> didn’t tell Soundwave anything, and neither did I.” Megatron couldn’t help smirking a little. “I’m fairly sure I’m not allowed to talk to him anymore. Somebody else lied.”</p><p>“I don’t want to be glad she’s not here anymore,” Rodimus said, looking out at the stars.</p><p>“Do you think that I do? She’s my amica.” Megatron shrugged.</p><p>“Did we just start the war again?”</p><p>“I thought it was over, too,” Megatron said. “But I think we let Optimus convince us it was. He’s very convincing, you know. A terrible writer, but he has that voice, and he does that sad, disappointed thing with his optics, and sometimes I want to forget what has happened over the past four million years myself. But the war isn’t over just because the Autobots aren’t fighting in it anymore, is it?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” said Rodimus. “I know we still have a ship in the Sol system. I know Soundwave has a commune there. I know that Galvatron’s somewhere around there.”</p><p>“Well.” Megatron closed his datapad. “There’s not much you and I can do, out here, if it turns out there are fools who still want to fight. But I can tell you this: she’s not one of them. She and Soundwave will probably have to, anyway. But she doesn't <i>want</i> it. And you and I will not be a part of it.”</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~*~*~*~</p>
</div><i></i><br/><p>
  <i><b>DebonairSharpshooter</b>: So this is not a wedding picture because that’s going to take a while, but I thought you might appreciate this.</i>
</p><p>
<i><b>DebonairSharpshooter</b>:  <a href="https://i.imgur.com/qEOh1Ls.png">catsleeping.gif</a></i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>GiveMeARingSometime</b>: Oh man! She just whitescreened, didn’t she? Can I put that up in the bar?</i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>DebonairSharpshooter</b>: Under normal conditions I would say yes but these are not normal conditions. Nobody’s supposed to know where he is, mate, I’m sorry. (He’s he today, but she was still a she when I took that.)</i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>GiveMeARingSometime</b>: Dude, the whole ship knows who she left with! But don’t worry about it. We’ve only got one Decepticon spy here now that the prom queen’s gone, and we know who he is.</i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>DebonairSharpshooter</b>: …you told the whole ship it was me?</i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>GiveMeARingSometime</b>: …well, actually no. I guess they all just saw her leave with Megatron, and he came back. I think Nautica knows what your name is, cause I guess Rav was in her bed one time when you two were talking online, but she doesn’t know the name of your ship. Come to think of it, neither do I. That’s good right?</i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>DebonairSharpshooter</b>: …I guess it is for now. Maybe when this is all over I’d like you to know what it is though.</i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>GiveMeARingSometime</b>: …really? Look, there’s something I meant to tell you.</i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>GiveMeARingSometime</b>: I am going to be gone for a while.</i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>GiveMeARingSometime</b>: And I don’t want Ravage to worry. Or you.</i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>DebonairSharpshooter</b>: I know they let Rav leave, but he wasn’t part of the crew. I didn’t think you could just frag off from that ship.. Where you going, mate?</i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>GiveMeARingSometime</b>: …I just need a little vacation. I might go to Earth.</i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>DebonairSharpshooter</b>: <i>Earth?</i> The wedding will be on a station near Jupiter. You sure you don’t want to come take your pictures yourself? I could save you a dance. </i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>GiveMeARingSometime</b>: That really sounds nice. I wish…</i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>GiveMeARingSometime</b>: Look, I won’t say goodbye, because</i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>GiveMeARingSometime</b>: But see ya later</i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>GiveMeARingSometime</b>: when I’m back online</i>
</p><p>
  <i><b>GiveMeARingSometime</b>: …whenever that is</i>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~*~*~*~</p>
</div>Soundwave was playing a gentle, meandering melody over the rhythm of the yellow, sulphurous Ionian snow crunching under his pedes. It sounded weaker in the low, thin and heavily volcanic atmosphere of Io, but it was still recognisable to his aviform companions as a theme he’d composed long ago when trying to express how he felt about Ravage.<p>He’d been searching the sky for voices he should have been able to hear, even if the shields on the other ship might prevent him from understanding the words. Cosmos was right. They weren’t there.</p><p>“She’s coming home,” Soundwave said, as he trudged to the edge of the cliff to watch the volcanoes spew and the lava pool on the ground below. The entirety of Io was like this. Most of the time he stayed inside the station, but not tonight.</p><p>“I told you, genius.” Buzzsaw circled lazily above him in the thin atmosphere, relying largely on his thrusters for support.</p><p>Laserbeak bunted her head into Soundwave’s masked cheek; she was perched on his shoulder. “Is she going to let you protect her, now?”</p><p>“She asks me to be Lord Protector,” Soundwave said quietly, beaming. “She put it in writing, because when I commed him last night, all we could do was spark-play each other. What do you think?”</p><p>“That Cosmos will be so disappointed,” Buzzsaw said with a snort, “but the Autobot will get over it.”</p><p>“My spark is hers. And hers alone. And she will be mine alone.” Soundwave shrugged. “As for Cosmos…I don’t think he’s here to court me, but even if he were, I have told him about her. I think he’s here because he’s worried about his friends, and I’m afraid he might have reason to be.”</p><p>He wondered if Galvatron had really decided to attack the Autobots. It seemed like a really bad idea, right now. But Galvatron had been having a whole lot of bad ideas. Galvatron was much older than any of the other Decepticons, and sometimes he seemed to think he was still the warlord of the Darklands, or the butcher of Antilla. Soundwave had hoped that he could advise Galvatron the way he’d advised Megatron once, but Galvatron hadn’t wanted his advice, only his firepower and following.</p><p>“Took you a while to learn to be jealous,” said Buzzsaw with heartfelt approval, “but you seem to be getting good at it.”</p><p>“I could never have denied her anything that gave her joy,” Soundwave said with a sighing ex-vent. “But Megatron doesn’t. And he hasn’t in a long, long time. This is what she wants, too.”</p><p>“Good,” said Laserbeak quietly. “I still can’t believe you sent her off like that.”</p><p>“Neither can I.” Soundwave turned to look up toward the distant sun, thinking of Earth, and the Nemesis, there. He was unable to sense the Autobots on Ark-7, and the Nemesis wouldn’t respond, because Galvatron was no longer under the illusion that they were allies of any sort. If Galvatron had restarted the war with the Autobots…they were really going to be fragged.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. dawn is breaking everywhere</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Shoot shoot, bang bang.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"...I know the rent is in arrears,<br/>The dog has not been fed in years,<br/>It's even worse than it appears, but<br/>It's all right..."</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzvk0fWtCs0">The Grateful Dead</a>, "Touch of Grey"</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I’d been napping on the couch, when I thought I heard Soundwave’s voice, and when I headed in that direction, Krok’s door was ajar. It was definitely Soundwave, and they were discussing the route Krok was going to take, and whether or not the Scavengers should take odd jobs along the way—so as not to look suspiciously in a hurry to get somewhere else. Like Sanctuary Station.</p><p>“So, what about Demus? I told you when you asked me about him before that I don’t actually know the guy, but we talk on the Triple M board sometimes—”</p><p>“<i><b>No</b></i>.”</p><p>
A ‘no’ like that from Soundwave never meant anything good.
</p><p>
“Stay away from Tebris if you can. I know it’s on the route, but if you can’t avoid the area—at least don’t land there,” Soundwave said after a moment.
</p><p>
“Okay,” Krok said. “I thought you were concerned about things you’d been hearing—”
</p><p>
“Soundwave: <i>very</i> concerned. Situation has changed. Investigate later. <i>When my conjunx is not aboard your ship</i>.”
</p><p>
“Got it,” said Krok. “Loud and clear.”
</p><p>
I knocked on the door. “Can I come in? I want to <i>see</i> him, if you’ve got him onscreen.”
</p><p>
Krok laughed and opened the door all the way. “I told him you were recharging, and he didn’t want to disturb you.” A familiar melodic theme began to come from the speakers.
</p><p>
“My beloved fool should know he’s always welcome to disturb me.” I walked over to Krok’s desk, sat down in his much-too-big chair, legs dangling, and kissed Soundwave’s masked face on the viewscreen. He bared his face and kissed me lightly back, and I could feel the echo of it in my derma and my lip plates.
</p><p>
“Ugh!” said Krok. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve cleaned that! Because I don’t!”
</p><p>
We both laughed, and both put our hands to the screen. There was a faint warm electromagnetic tingle where our fingertips brushed one another. “I miss you.”
</p><p>
“Miss you too.”
</p><p>
“Do <i>not</i> make out in my room, please!”
</p><p>
“Understood,” said Soundwave. “Will comm Ravi-brightspark later.” His cheeks were silvery-lavender with energon flush, and I could not resist brushing my cheek against his. “My wife.”
</p><p>
“I know,” said Krok. “Spinister made her a pendant. It’s red today.”
</p><p>
Soundwave played a recording over the music. It was in English, a lovely, deep, old human voice: “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale, her infinite variety—”
</p><p>
I shivered. “And to my spark he spoke, with borrowed words; but no glyph could contain the meaning thereof.”
</p><p>
“Even I know that one’s yours,” Krok grumbled good-naturedly. “Play the rounds on your own time.”
</p><p>
I sat back in his chair. Soundwave shrugged, blew me a kiss, and replaced his mask. “The <i>Peace Without Tyranny</i> came back,” he told me, “with settlers. Conditions for our people on Cybertron, worse than we thought. But we’re mining the Belt, and there’s energon on Europa.”
</p><p>
I beamed at him. “That’s <i>wonderful</i>.”
</p><p>
“It really is,” Krok agreed, resting one hand on the back of his chair, and squeezing my shoulder with the other. “I didn’t expect conditions to be good, but I’m glad people are coming to you. And <i>energon</i>…”
</p><p>
Soundwave nodded. “Finally got Cosmos to come inside.”
</p><p>
“That’s wonderful, too,” I said, “but he’d better not be flirting with you.”
</p><p>
“Soundwave: is not flirting back.” He put his hand up to the screen again, and I touched it.
</p><p>
“Good.” I blinked at him, long and slow. “He can find his <i>own</i> hot Decepticon. Sounds like you’ve got a bigger selection than ever.”
</p><p>
Soundwave blinked back. “More coming in every trip,” he said, reluctantly dropping his hand.
</p><p>
I looked up at Krok. “I’ll leave you both to your plotting, but what the Pit is the issue with Tebris? I’ve never heard of the place.”
</p><p>
“Will tell you after we fix it,” Soundwave said gently. “No need for you to know now: <i>not going to go there</i>.” He ex-vented. “My brightspark has worries enough.”
</p><p>
I frowned. It had to be bad if he didn’t want to tell me. And that probably also meant that if I knew what kind of bad it was, <i>he would not expect me to be able to leave it alone</i>.
</p><p>
“Don’t make me regret not making you tell me,” I warned him. “You’ve got enough to explain when I get home.”
</p><p>
“Understood,” said Soundwave, and I felt then that he <i>wanted</i> to tell me, but was also very afraid for me. I decided it probably had something to do with Galvatron’s movements, since Krok and he were both rightfully concerned about that, and did not press the issue.
</p><p>
“Comm me when you have time, my Lord Protector.” I blew a kiss back to him.
</p><p>
“<i><b>Yes</b></i>!” Krok shouted, delightedly punching the air, when he heard me say Lord Protector. I rolled my optics at him, fondly, then turned back to the screen and blew kisses to Soundwave.  Who blinked at me.
</p><p>
“My Lady Voice,” Soundwave replied, tapping his helm. “Be well, and be loved, and rise up.”
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~*~*~*~</p>
</div><p>Misfire was sitting up in the berth looking rather morose, and Grimlock was actually curled up with his head in Misfire’s lap.</p><p>I took a picture of Grimlock, but left Misfire’s unhappy face out, because it wasn’t funny and I meant it to be a playful revenge for the picture that Misfire had taken of <i>me</i> and had not promised not to send anyone else.</p><p>“He is kinda cute,” Misfire said, and handed me a little bowl with something burning in it as I walked over to the berth. The something in the bowl was charred and producing a whole lot of foul-smelling smoke that made me feel slightly dizzy. "Try this, Cat, it’s amazing."</p><p>“Gross,” I said, and found a cup that was empty except for the dried remains of some soda or energy drink stuck to the bottom, then upended it over the bowl so whatever it was would stop burning when it ran out of oxygen.</p><p>“Hey! Do you know how rarely I find something like that?”</p><p>“Not rarely enough. Relax, that cup was completely dried out. Have pity on my nose, magenta menace.” I laid down in the berth myself. On top of them both.</p><p>A large hand fell on my shoulder. “Not-sneaky-today-cat,” Grimlock said drowsily, and Misfire instantly brightened.</p><p>“No,” he said, “no.  No she’s not. What’s her name?”</p><p>“Sneaky.” Grimlock yawned, gently pushed me aside, sat up, and transformed into root mode, a mech again.</p><p>“Works for me,” I told Grimlock as he walked out of the room. “I said I’d take it.”</p><p>I looked up at Misfire. “What’s wrong with you anyway, it’s early yet for you to be getting high on…whatever that is.”</p><p>“I’m worried about your friend,” he said, punctuating it with an ear-skritch which I had not asked for, but could not say I didn’t really need. Then he shoved his open laptop into my hands.</p><p>I saw the picture first. “You sent that to someone? You absolute <i>afthelm</i>! And to Swerve, of all people?”</p><p>Misfire just laughed, but it was half-hearted. “Read the rest of it, Cat.”</p><p>So I did. He was right. It was a seriously weird conversation. But it was also…a little familiar. “Well, no, they don’t take vacations. And anyone’s free to go, except Megatron. But…there’s no reason for him to go. He <i>loves</i> his bar.” I looked up at Misfire. “Somebody has a crush.”</p><p>Misfire shrugged. It bothered me a lot that he wasn’t teasing me back. The messages bothered me too, but saying weird, confusing slag that nobody around had any damn context for was completely a Swerve move.</p><p>“I don’t think you should think too hard about this. He is not going to vape on you. Sometimes he says really loopy things when he’s been drinking. He’s only been mainlining the entirety of Earth’s collective broadcast output in multiple languages. For all I know he’s quoting something.”</p><p>“Really?” Misfire looked down at me, thoughtfully.  “Sounds fake. But whatever.”</p><p>“Really,” I said. Though Misfire’s concern did have me wondering. It wasn’t like we could just go back to the Lost Light and check on Swerve.</p><p>“<i>Really</i>.”</p><p>I groaned. “I’ll send Megatron a message on our private channel and ask him to go and check on Swerve, okay? Would that make you feel better?”</p><p>“Would you?” Misfire skritched my ear again, smiling broadly, if worriedly. “Would Megatron do that? Really? I guess he might do it for you, but…”</p><p>“Of course I would, dumbaft.” I rolled my eyes. “And he’d want to know if something was wrong with Swerve, too.”</p><p>Misfire pulled me up into a tight, long hug. “Thanks, Cat. You’re the best.”</p><p>“You bet I am.”</p><p>Then the door flew open, and Fulcrum leaned in. “Pinhead! Catface! It’s time for Shoot Shoot Bang Bang!” That was definitely not his indoor voice.</p><p>I glared at him. “I don’t know what that is, but if you ever call me Catface again I’m going to shoot <i>your</i> face.”</p><p>“You’ll love it,” said Misfire, tugging me up by the wrist as he stood. “I won’t be surprised if you win.”</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~*~*~*~</p>
</div>“Shoot Shoot Bang Bang” turned out to be ‘chasing each other throughout the ship while firing paint guns and suction darts at each other, and the last person not to have taken a blow that would’ve killed them with a real weapon wins.’<p>Krok went down first. There were multiple shots. One for each of us. He is <i>not</i> great at hiding.</p><p>For obvious reasons, Grimlock went down second and third, once as a mech and the second time in his dinosaur alt; Crankcase got him with a paintball in the face, and I was a little bit worried it might have actually knocked him out.</p><p>I won, because I got up in the vents (they were filthy, of course), where I took out Fulcrum and Misfire, then dropped out of the vents behind Grimlock, who was actually snoring. I then used my sniper training to take out Spinister and Crankcase from behind Grimlock's dinosaur aft.</p><p>Spoiler alert: Crankcase is a <i><b>very</b> sore loser</i>.</p><p>I locked myself in the cargo bay and commed Soundwave. We talked for a while, then I went to the washracks to get rid of the dust from the vents that had probably been there for vorns. After that, I messaged Megatron and asked him to check on Swerve. I got his auto-responder, but it didn’t really worry me because he is the captain and was probably busy; I knew he’d get back to me when he could.</p><p>When Krok told me to come out and eat dinner, Crankcase was still bitching. “Trophy is <i>not allowed</i>—” He saw me come in and turned on me. “You! You are not allowed to play my game anymore! That was the shortest game we’ve ever played!”</p><p>I leaned back into a pile of cushions and shrugged, grabbing an open can of energy drink that was mostly still full and taking a swig. “Did you somehow forget who I am and what I do for this cause? I don’t care what Skullcrusher said on his stupid comedy show, I am not the High Command’s <i>morale officer</i>!”</p><p>“Yeah, don’t be rude,” said Fulcrum.</p><p>“Fine! <b><i>Ravage</i></b> is not allowed to play Shoot Shoot Bang Bang anymore. Because—” Crankcase leaned over and peered at me. I flashed the red pendant his way. “<b>RAVAGE</b> is not allowed to play Shoot Shoot Bang Bang anymore because <i>she <b>cheats</b>!</i>”</p><p>Those were fighting words.</p><p>“There is nothing in the rules that says I have to run around the ship like an idiot just because most of the rest of you do. I don’t care if you call me ‘Trophy’, but hiding behind Grimlock while he is asleep and sniping at people is a perfectly reasonable and valid life choice. <i>Especially</i> when I <b>win</b>!” I snapped.</p><p>Krok just handed me a chilly bottle of coolant, then gave me this very sympathetic and extremely tired look. I could see why he and Soundwave got along so well, as long as they didn’t talk religion. Soundwave has no particular issue with Triple M; he just hates religion, period.</p><p>I chugged the coolant. It was <i>divine</i>.</p><p>“There is now!” Crankcase snapped. “It’s <i>my game</i> and <i><b>I</b> make the rules</i>!”</p><p>Fulcrum snorted. “Crankcase doesn’t understand how trademarks work.”</p><p>“Yeah,” I said. “You actually do have to register trademarks, Crankcase.”</p><p>Crankcase snorted. “How do <i>you</i> know? Did you trademark the way you suck spike, Trophy?”</p><p>The room fell silent. Krok and Misfire both glared at him. I looked right into Crankcase’s optics.</p><p>“<i><b>Yes</b></i>,” I said firmly. “As a matter of fact, I did. Nobody else can copy my tricks. So too bad for you, ‘cause you’ll never get it like Soundwave does.” Then I laughed, and so did everyone else.</p><p>Crankcase passed me the high-grade. “You win,” he said, looking ever so faintly terrified.</p><p>“That’s twice today,” said Spinister brightly.</p><p>Misfire sat down next to me with a tin of ametrine brittle, which I promptly dug into. “So did you hear from our Mighty Lord Auto of Bot?”</p><p>“Sorry,” I said. “Got his auto-responder. They must be busy having Exciting Adventures Again.“</p><p>“Well,” Misfire said companionably, “you won’t have any of those with us! But you might get to learn how to siphon.” He glanced in the general direction of Crankcase. “I’m sorry about him.”</p><p>“Don’t be.” I laughed. “So what if I like to give head, at least I still <i>have</i> all of mine.”</p><p>“What is <i>wrong</i> with these fragging headphones?” Fulcrum snapped. “I can’t adjust them at all!”</p><p>I looked up at him, saw what he had in his hands, and <i>hissed</i>. “Don’t you dare stretch those out—those are mine!”</p><p>“I don’t see a label on ‘em,” he said.</p><p>“Would it matter if you did?” Krok groaned. “Give them back to her.”</p><p>Fulcrum scowled. “I want to watch the Self-Hating Decepticon on my laptop, and everyone else’s suck. These sound great but they don’t adjust.”</p><p>“Of course they sound great, they were probably made by Soundwave,” Krok said, and took them out of Fulcrum’s hands and threw them to me. “But she can’t use everyone else’s. She can only use hers. So this is not one of those things we all share, Fulcrum.”</p><p>“They don’t adjust because they were made for my head and ears.” I draped them around my neck and resolved to keep them in my subspace or in one of my locked bags. “Your head and ears are, surprisingly, nothing like mine. I also don’t turn into a bomb.”</p><p>“Fair.” Fulcrum groaned; then a klaxon went off. “Hey, is that some kind of alert?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. bury your dead but don't leave a trace</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>It's 0200; do you know where your conjunx is?</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"Don't you understand what I'm trying to say?<br/>Can't you feel the fear that I'm feeling today?<br/>If the button is pushed, there's no running away..."</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfZVu0alU0I">Barry McGuire</a>, "Eve of Destruction"</p><p>Also: Soundwave's quoting the words of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Mottram">Richard Mottram</a> on <a href="https://libquotes.com/richard-mottram/quote/lbx1c3j">Friday, 15th February, 2002</a> when he attempts to explain to Cosmos exactly how fucked he thinks they are.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Swerve had had other visitors in the medical bay, but he had not expected to come out of recharge to find <i>Megatron</i> looking down at him. “I’m here to find out how you’re doing,” he said. “If you’re thinking of asking me why I should care, please don’t. Ravage and Misfire are worried about you, and I need to know what to tell them.”</p><p>“<i>They <b>are</b>?</i>” Swerve sat up straight in the medical berth. He’d expected Ravage to forget all about him as soon as she was on her way home to her lifelong lover, and he’d frankly been surprised that Misfire had been sending him messages, though he’d decided to enjoy it as long as it lasted.</p><p>After all, Misfire was also a Decepticon (a surprisingly cute one, but still a Decepticon), and clearly had important Decepticon business to do, since Soundwave of all people trusted him to bring home his conjunx.</p><p>Megatron ex-vented heavily. “I’m glad you told <i>someone</i> something was wrong. You realise you’re lucky Skids finally found you?”</p><p>Swerve only heard the first part before his optics boggled; nothing Megatron said after that sunk in. “I didn’t…I didn’t mean to upset them—” Swerve couldn’t remember what he’d sent in his message to Misfire, but he’d tried to make it sound normal, even though he hadn’t been feeling normal at all. “I upset Misfire enough that he told Ravage, and Ravage thought that was important enough to tell <i>you</i>?”</p><p>“Who <i>else</i> were they going to ask?” Megatron said, shaking his head. “Ravage is my amica.”</p><p>At that Swerve couldn’t help chuckling. “Glad you two worked <i>that</i> out,” he said, with <i>every</i> trace of sarcasm, and then he realised exactly what he had said and to whom and stopped laughing at once.</p><p>Megatron shrugged. “Well, she is. We’ve been waiting for someone higher up to decide to cut off our commlink now that she’s gone. But Rodimus won’t. She warned us about your situation, and if you hadn’t manifested an entire holoform planet, her message would’ve been the only warning we got. So: what do you want me to tell them?”</p><p>Swerve glanced aside, rather sheepishly. “I’ll tell Misfire myself, and I guess he can tell Ravage. I’ll tell him I got a bad rust infection and I wasn’t thinking quite right. That’s the truth, after all...”</p><p>“Tell them whatever you want,” said Megatron. “If you want to spare them the rest of the story, that’s within your rights. Ravage does have a lot on her mind right now. I’m not sure they need to know that you generated a holographic copy of Earth or that it took the entire crew to locate you…but they’d probably care that you don’t think people would miss you.”</p><p>“Oh, <i>no</i>…” Swerve groaned; all he heard, again, was Earth, before his mind went off on its own business. “I told him I was gonna go to Earth on vacation, and he invited me to Ravage’s wedding!”</p><p>Megatron covered his face with his hands. “Ravage’s…<i>what</i>?” He thought for a moment. “Soundwave and Ravage are planning an actual conjunx ritus ceremony—?”</p><p>“Ravage’s wedding to Soundwave—get with the program already!” Swerve shook his head. “It’s happening somewhere near Jupiter—”</p><p>“<b>Don’t</b>.” Megatron’s hand dropped right over Swerve’s mouth and stayed there. Swerve briefly considered biting him, but since he wasn’t doing anything else with his hand, and he was the co-captain, Swerve just waited for Megatron to let go. Which Megatron did. “Do not.” He vented air in to cool down his processors. “Do not tell <i>anyone else on this ship</i> where Ravage is, or where she is going, if you care about Ravage. Or Misfire. I mean it.”</p><p>Swerve looked up at him, frowning. “What’s going on? Does Rodimus know?”</p><p>“Rodimus knows.” Megatron scowled at him. “But you’ll forgive me,” he said, and it almost sounded gentle, “if I don’t think it wise to trust <i>you</i> with all those details. This is a matter of Ravage’s personal safety. And Misfire’s, since his crew is transporting her.”</p><p>“I asked her not to let Soundwave start up the war again,” Swerve said, very quietly, because he knew this was serious business. He’d kind of known that all along, but he and he’d been trying not to worry about it, since it was above his pay grade and also one more thing that had made him feel like supporting cast at best in his own life.</p><p>“He won’t,” said Megatron, who sat down, which Swerve didn’t really want him to do. At the same time, Swerve couldn’t help being curious. Especially not after the revelation that Ravage—and Misfire—actually <i>cared</i> what happened to him, and would probably have been upset if he’d actually died.</p><p>Swerve had always suspected that Megatron was still a Decepticon, and he’d never been under any illusions about Ravage or Misfire. But if Megatron had been planning something nefarious, he could probably have left on the same ship they’d taken. And he hadn’t. “You sure?”</p><p>“Yes,” said Megatron, firmly and without hesitation. “He wants <i>real peace</i>. Soundwave’s earned his reputation, but he earned it following orders that I gave him. Some of which went very much against his nature. But there are people out there who don’t want peace.” He cocked his head to one side. “You have to understand, Swerve. The Decepticons—even the ones who still want to fight—can’t really fight us. They don’t have the resources.”</p><p>“Not even Soundwave?” Swerve raised an eyebrow.</p><p>“Soundwave wants peace. All his resources are tied up in that.” Megatron ex-vented. “What I’m trying to say is that most of the Decepticon rank and file took the peace Optimus offered them, even though it was an insult to people like Ravage. You need to understand that some of the people out there who don’t really want peace are <i>Autobots</i>. It’s not safe for our Decepticon friends for you to assume that none of those people are aboard this ship. Or going to your bar.”</p><p>Swerve almost choked. Decepticon friends. Swerve had Decepticon friends. How did that even happen? “Okay, old man, what’s Ravage about now anyway? You know she doesn’t like to be the centre of attention. You’re the one who pushed her out on the dance floor on the Vis Vitalis. You’re the one who published her works, even though you deny it. Why’d you do that to her, if she’s your amica endura?”</p><p>“She doesn’t hate to be the centre of attention,” Megatron said quietly. “She fears it, because she learned to associate it with being hurt. I’m not one to discount the value of a fresh perspective, but I’ve known her longer than you, and being afraid of doing something doesn’t mean that you dislike it. I wouldn’t have chosen this path for her, but once I was sure she could not be dissuaded, I did my best to make sure she’d be able to handle it.”</p><p>Swerve glanced down at his hands, unhappy and happy at the same time, not sure what to say. “You telling me that my two newest friends, whom I really like, are in trouble with a lot of the ‘cons and a few of us Autobots?”</p><p>Megatron gave Swerve a shrewd look, a look that made him a little uncomfortable, because of how suddenly <i>visible</i> he felt, himself. “That is exactly what I’m telling you. Because I think you care for them, and I know they care for you. You could do a lot worse. Be proud of her. I am.”</p><p>Swerve felt his struts lock into place and his cables tense. “So what can I do to help them?”</p><p>Megatron just raised one brow ridge, looked him over, and considered…something.</p><p>“I don’t know,” he finally said. “But I’ll think about that.”</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~*~*~*~</p>
</div>“It’s very difficult,” Cosmos said, and paused to try and come up with the right words. “It’s hard to believe you didn’t know exactly what he was going to do.”<p>Soundwave was literally aft deep in the server, only his legs sticking out as he ran the extirpation routines again. He was very annoyed that he hadn’t figured out that nothing named Onyx was ever benevolent, and beginning to believe there was no such thing in the multiverse as coincidence.</p><p>“Soundwave: not an idiot.” The voice came out of the server itself. “Would not place self into such vulnerability under such circumstance. Am very busy now, Cosmos.”</p><p>“You always are, lately.”</p><p>“Affirmative. Extirpating and isolating Onyx source code time-consuming, draining, and painstaking. Cosmos: perhaps would assist?”</p><p>“When you talk like that, I know you’re uncomfortable.”</p><p>“Position not optimum for physical comfort. If Cosmos wants to know what we are doing, he should help.” Soundwave had a processor ache, a twisted neck cable, and something caught in one of his lumbar joints. He was uncomfortable, all right. But done with this server, at least. Carefully, he started to wind his cables back into his ports, but stopped when the alert in the lower left corner of his HUD started flashing.</p><p>He acknowledged the alert. It was an outside transmission and not from a trusted source; it was from Cybertron.</p><p>“I need to know what’s going on!” Cosmos shouted.</p><p>“Soundwave: receiving transmission.” Soundwave did not bother to scrub the impatience from that statement. As his decryption and antiviral routines finished processing the transmission, text began to spread across his HUD and disappear: too fast for anyone <i>else</i> to record.</p><p>
  <b>SPACEBRIDGE SECURED</b>
</p><p>
  <b>DESTINATION: ARK-7</b>
</p><p>
  <b>TRAVELLERS UNAWARE OF INTERNAL DIVISION</b>
</p><p>
  <b>NEEDLENOSE KNOWS WHAT YOU DID</b>
</p><p>That last was unfortunate. The information trail was obvious: from the Prime to Arcee, and then to her brother, who of course informed Needlenose, because Needlenose had previously been more loyal to Soundwave...whose ‘working relationship’ with Galvatron had been beyond saving for quite some time; when he was honest with himself, it had really never not been.</p><p>Soundwave had figured that if Galvatron did take the spacebridge without his assistance, the refugees wouldn’t be headed for Sanctuary. Someday, Soundwave was going to have to have a rueful conversation with Megatron about the inevitable consequences of ignoring Ravage’s advice. But he, unlike Megatron, was not going to make a habit of that.</p><p>
  <b>Patch me into the spacebridge. Any connection will do.</b>
</p><p>No one answered. Cybertron was too far away for him to force even an audio-visual connection through the electronic interface, and that was a violent act: the polar opposite of an appropriate reward for a tip. But he needed to get into the spacebridge’s systems and see if he couldn’t divert some of the innocent parties to Sanctuary.</p><p>He wasn’t going to be able to do that from under this particular server. And his informant had signed off. He finished rewinding his data cables and pushed himself out from under the server bank so quickly he almost knocked Cosmos over, running at top speed to the command centre.</p><p>There would <i>probably</i> still be Onyx code running on the Ark-7.</p><p>The glimmerings of a Very Bad Idea began to take form at the edge of his conscious processes.</p><p>Cosmos couldn’t run as fast as Soundwave could and was flying along behind him. Soundwave wanted to move <i>faster</i>--could Cosmos tow him? <i>Frag</i> those idiots who had convinced him to go along with the EDC and install the gravity modules.</p><p>“<i>What’s going <b>on</b>, Soundwave?</i>”</p><p>Soundwave played a recording, because he wasn’t sparing the processor time figuring out what to say: it was a harsh male human voice, speaking in a British accent: <i>”We're all fucked. I'm fucked. You're fucked. The whole department's fucked. It's been the biggest cock-up ever and we're all completely fucked!”</i></p><p>“<i>What’s he done <b>now</b> that you swear you had no idea he was planning?”</i> Cosmos snapped, but he let Soundwave grab hold of him and engaged thrusters anyway, to the great dismay of about fifteen new residents they almost ran over outside of the dining hall.</p><p>Soundwave didn’t answer him because he was too busy commanding all the doors in the corridors to stay shut and all the command centre doors to stay open, forcing a connection with the mainframe, and swearing in every language he knew.</p><p>When they got to the command centre, there was an image of Horri-Bull’s dead body filling half the main viewscreen. It was captioned in blinking bold Impact font, coloured white: “It’s 0200: do you know where your conjunx is?”</p><p>“Get that slag off my screen!” Soundwave bellowed, but it disappeared as soon as he took the command chair. What a stupid way to try and distract him. He knew exactly where Ravage was: on <i>The Weak Anthropic Principle</i>, safe in the unorthodox but loving servos of the Scavengers.</p><p>“You have a conjunx?” Cosmos sputtered indignantly.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~*~*~*~</p>
</div>Fortress Maximus was trying (and utterly failing) to pay attention to Red Alert’s exposition of his latest conspiracy theory when the alarms went off. He hadn’t expected dealing with Demus to be precisely <i>easy</i>, but a firefight in the Tebris system had not been even close to the top of his list of potential disruptions.<p>Both ships were Cybertronian. The smaller one, apparently barely more than a shuttle, displayed no faction marks at all, nor was it registered in any legal or criminal database.</p><p>Red Alert got a match on the larger of the two. “It’s an exploration vessel, model 84: <i>The Weak Anthropic Principle</i>. Autobot-registered, but allegedly linked to a bunch of Decepticon deserters known as the Scavengers.” He frowned. “This entry’s been scrubbed and rewritten at least three times within the last two decacycles.”</p><p>“You know who did the scrubbing?” Fortress Maximus asked quietly. The smaller ship was on the offence. The W.A.P. was primarily engaging in evasive manoeuvres, but it had already taken a couple of hits that a ship the size of the smaller one should not have been able to deliver.</p><p>“Someone who outranks you, apparently,” said Red Alert with a shrug. “Prime? Starscream?” He frowned. “Does Ultra Magnus still have access to your feeds? He was the Enforcer of the Accord before you, after all.”</p><p>Fortress Maximus was even more confused than he’d been before, and he didn’t like it. “I don’t know, but why would <i>any</i> of them care about a bunch of ‘con deserters?”</p><p>“We could put a stop to this and then find out,” Red Alert suggested.</p><p>Fortress Maximus considered this briefly. “No. We <i>know</i> what Demus is probably guilty of, and if either of those two vessels is involved in his efforts, he’ll find out we’re here if we intervene. We’re going to continue our mission, and pick up whoever wins on the flipside. I’m not getting distracted by what’s probably a Decepticon or ex-Decepticon internal squabble. Just tell me what we know about who we might run up against on the way back.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. she's the giggle at a funeral</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>She always wanted to be the cavalry.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"Oh, those shots are ringing out<br/>And that's the way it's been here lately<br/>Oh, those walls are coming down<br/>And I noticed the ground was shaking, shaking<br/>But I'm still standing here..."</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbQK9b-MtsE">David Shaw</a>, "Shaken"</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was dark in the hidden compartments of the cargo bay, but that was all right. I’m comfortable in the dark. It was the quiet that bothered me. I knew that Krok and Spinister would be hard at work repairing the engines, but we were on Tebris VII, which was the planet Soundwave had ordered us to avoid, and I didn’t know why he’d been so adamant about it because <i>he hadn’t wanted to add to my worries</i>.</p><p>If I survived, we were going to have to stop doing that to each other.</p><p>Grimlock was out of it; he’d had a fit after the second shot hit us, and I’d had to stun him; even Misfire had understood what was at stake. Misfire, who’d got a couple of <i>really good hits</i> on the afthelm who’d shot us down. Maybe that was the reason they hadn’t come down here after us. I could only hope. It’s not true that Misfire can’t hit what he’s aiming at. He can, if he wants to badly enough. The trick is making him want to. That was some of the best shooting I’ve ever seen him do. He hates doing it, but there are things he hates more.</p><p>I took off the pendant that Spinister had made for me, finagled my mesh of deflectors out of my bag and slipped into it. It had always felt like a second set of plate, but now, for some reason, it itched. Not in an actual, scratchable way, but in an uneasy way, as if it held some kind of charge that my frame found weirdly repellent.</p><p>The last time I’d been locked in a dark space like this, I’d been locked in from the other side. I’d been with Megatron. I’d been half afraid we were all going to die, and half afraid that we weren’t. Now I wanted to live more than I had in a very long time, so of course here we were.</p><p>I felt like I should’ve been up there with Misfire, and Fulcrum, guarding us while the others worked hard to put the ship back together. Krok had insisted that I stay hidden, even though he damned well knew I could hide in plain sight if I wanted to. So here I was in the dark. It felt like I was waiting for the executioner. Or a Vosian princeling, a hostage in an old romance, the sort of thing that Thundercracker used to loan me when I was bored, back on the Nemesis. There were worse things than being an assassin and a saboteur, I decided, and one of those things was being the <i>love interest</i>. Love interests get fought over, whether they like it or not, and not always by people they even want to be with. And sometimes they get killed for no reason except to make the protagonist even more hurt and more angry than they already were.</p><p>If I had to die, it was going to be because of my own decisions, not because of the tears or the energon some other mech was going to spill on my behalf. “Frag this slag,” I said, to no-one in particular.</p><p>“No sneaky cat cry.”</p><p>Grimlock’s red optics were online, and he was a mech again.</p><p>“’M not,” I protested half-heartedly, because at least I wasn’t sobbing, and optical lubricant overrun is a known issue with experimental systems like mine, or at least that was the story I’d planned to stick to.</p><p>“Me Grimlock take care of you.”</p><p>“I can take care of myself,” I grumbled.</p><p>“Never hurt to have friends.” He patted my shoulder, awkwardly, and I resisted the temptation to bite, because it wasn’t him I wanted to bite.</p><p>The panel above me moved and Misfire jumped down into the compartment with us. “Hey. Krok’s going to go see if he can’t get Demus to sell us some scrap so we can finish patching the hull. They know each other from Triple M, after all.”</p><p>“Isn’t that the person Soundwave <i>specifically said we should completely avoid</i>?” I asked, feeling more and more trapped and more and more sceptical with every astrosec.</p><p>“Well, yeah,” Misfire said. “But where else are we going to get it?”</p><p>I started to laugh, and it sounded a bit hysterical. “I don’t know, Misfire. We could try <i>stealing</i>. I know that’s a totally new concept for everyone here and it’s nothing any one of us has ever done before, but…”</p><p>Misfire chuckled. “Relax, Cat.” He pulled me into a hug. I only half-heartedly tried to slug him.</p><p>“I wanna go <i>home</i>,” I said, not caring if I sounded like a sparkling again.</p><p>“I know,” Misfire murmured against the top of my head. “I’ll be in the shops with you, finding your cape for the ritus before you know it, okay?”</p><p>“I’d be happier guarding your six,” I retorted. “I feel like the fragging Mistress of Flame, not someone you’ve been in a trench with before. And that might even be okay, except we do not have her entourage. We <i>only have <b>each other</b></i>.”</p><p>“Yeah.” Misfire sighed. “You ever hear from Megatron?”</p><p> “Something something rust infection, fever and delirium, your crush is all better now.” I laughed and laid my head on his shoulder. “Just before we strapped into the gunner coves, but there wasn’t a chance to tell you then.”</p><p>“So now all I got to worry about is right here.” Misfire grinned at both of us.</p><p>I wanted to cry again. He felt more like a brother than Glit ever had. He reminded me of Stalker, before Ratbat killed him…and wasn’t <i>that</i> an unsettling thought. “Don’t <i>leave me here</i>. We did all right in the gunner coves, didn’t we? That was some mighty fine shooting I saw you do.”</p><p>“Don’t tell anyone,” Misfire said, and tried to press his helm into mine, but the shape of my head was all wrong for that and my muzzle kept getting in the way. “Got a reputation to look out for.”</p><p>“You better not be trying to kiss me,” I said, and we both laughed, and he started to say something about not wanting Soundwave to murder him, only then I blurted out something I’d never even consciously thought before, which was: “It’s nice knowing someone loves me this much who’s never tried to frag me.”</p><p>Then it was Misfire’s optics that were gleaming with lubricant. “Aw, <i>Cat</i>,” he said. “I don’t believe I’m the only one out there like that. There’s Krok, for one. And Emmy. You’re really <i>not</i> the morale officer, no matter what that bludger Skullcruncher says, and I’m not tryna pash you, you beauty.”</p><p>“Me Grimlock love sneaky cat too.”</p><p>I laughed softly and grinned at him. I’d have taken it more seriously if he’d been able to remember all of our previous acquaintance and not just the good parts, but there were times when I was going to take what I could get and this was one of them.</p><p>“I hope you always feel that way,” I said.</p><p>Of course, the Scavengers left without me anyway. They tried not to make me feel any more like a damsel in distress than I already did—they pointed out that someone would have to watch Grimlock—but leave they did, and there we were in the dark again.</p><p>“Me Grimlock sorry they not take cat too,” Grimlock said quietly.</p><p>“Eh,” I said. “Just don’t empty your tank on the floor again. We’ll be fine.”</p><p>Grimlock laughed. I wondered how Soundwave was doing. I hoped he was sitting at a table in the dining hall on Sanctuary, sharing some really incredible high-grade with Cosmos and Howlback. And I hoped he’d just been being careful when he’d warned us off this planet, even though I knew that was stupid.</p><p>The rest of them hadn’t been gone more than a breem or two before I heard pedes on the floor above us. I moved to the console on the wall and pulled up the security feed. There was only one other person on the ship with us, and there was nobody outside. I decided I wasn’t going to get cornered, and I motioned Grimlock to stand with me under the false floor that hid us, pointing up.</p><p>Grimlock put his hands against it. When our unwanted guest was standing squarely in the centre of it, Grimlock <i>pushed</i>, and then leapt up, transforming in the air. I followed him; there, underneath all four of Grimlock’s pedes, was <i><b>Lockdown</b></i>.</p><p>Lockdown looked up at me ruefully with the optic I didn’t have the business end of my blaster shoved into.</p><p>“I guess I’m not worth what Galvatron paid you,” I said, looking smug. “Did you not at least bring back-up? Or was that the afthelm <i>Misfire</i> shot out of your gunner cove?” I shook my head, laughing. “Primus’ dripping valve, that poor guy died embarrassed.”</p><p>“Bitch,” said Lockdown.</p><p>“Wrong species,” I said quietly. “What were you going to do, put my head on a pike and give it to Galvatron in the hope of a sign-up bonus?”</p><p>Lockdown laughed bitterly. “Actually,” he said, “Needlenose paid me to take you to <i>Demus</i>, and then to bring you back to Galvatron alive. For certain values of ‘alive’.” He ex-vented, looking rather like he’d like to shake his head. “In case you didn’t notice, I surrender.”</p><p>“The problem that I have with your surrender,” I said, “is that I don’t trust you to <i>stay</i> surrendered if you think you have a chance to get the drop on me and pull this off. I don’t have a bloody clue why Needlenose or Galvatron wanted you to take me to Demus, but I’m sure when I figure it out, I won’t like it. So the stakes are much higher here for me than they are for you. The worst thing I can do to you is <i>kill</i> you.”</p><p>Lockdown was starting to look even more uncomfortable than he had before. I’ve always been uncomfortable with the notion of a ‘fate worse than death’, because you don’t come back from death unless your name is Optimus Prime, and pretty much everything else that can be done to you is reversible. I’ve experienced a few of the things people consider a ‘fate worse than death’, and I’m definitely glad I survived them.</p><p>But Needlenose had wanted revenge for Horri-Bull. And Galvatron had apparently decided I deserved the metaphorical ‘fate worse than death’ and was probably also planning to use whatever it was to break Soundwave.</p><p>“I’m not feeling charitable, Lockdown,” I told him. “If you want a chance of surviving this, you’d better tell me what the frag my friends are about to walk into.”</p><p>“Demus makes the Roboids,” Lockdown blurted out, uncomfortably.</p><p>I nodded. “And this relates to me how?”</p><p>“He doesn’t make ‘em out of scrap. Or even corpses.” Lockdown groaned. “Frag, just shoot me. You’re gonna do it anyway.”</p><p>“Too right,” I said. But I didn’t shoot him in the eye. There was a chance Swindle might pay for him, and that was worth considering. I shot him directly in the T-cog, twice, then once in each knee and once in each shoulder, ignoring his screams, while Grimlock held him down. And I didn’t feel bad about it. He would’ve seen worse done to me, and if I did decide to let him live, I didn’t want him getting up and coming after me.</p><p>“Why not just kill me?” he groaned.</p><p>“I could ask you the same,” I replied. “I don’t know what a Roboid is exactly, but I don’t want my friends to be used for parts either.”</p><p>Lockdown laughed through his pain. “Only beastformers,” he said, looking up at me. “They’re <i>domesticated</i>.”</p><p>“Right,” I said, and then I didn’t care what Swindle might be willing to do or pay to get him back. “Say hello to Unicron for me.” And then I took the rest of Rossum’s Trinity away from him, because after all, he was just getting paid for this, and I’m really not into the whole ‘prolonged torture’ thing.</p><p>It had been Demus’ idea to do this to people like me, and it had been either Needlenose’s or Galvatron’s idea to have it done to me specifically, as much to hurt Soundwave as me. But that didn’t mean I was willing to let anyone else who was willing to be part of it go on drinking energon.</p><p>“Cat did <i>good</i>,” Grimlock said firmly.</p><p>“I’m glad you think so, big guy,” I said. “So did you. Wait here while I go to Krok’s room and find out where this Demus fucker told them to meet him.”</p><p>Grimlock nodded. I wondered how much of the entire exchange he’d understood, but I decided it was enough. For now.</p><p>Once I had the coordinates, I closed my optics briefly and pulled myself up to my full height. To my surprise, my T-cog activated, and I could hear my seams opening as parts of me shifted and I pulled more mass I hadn’t even known I had out of subspace. When I opened my optics and looked at the mirror in Krok’s quarters, I saw something a lot like <i>Tripredacus feliformata</i> look back at me. Not quite as bulky as the being in the images Megatron and Ratchet had shown me before—I didn’t feel completely dysphoric, as I had when I’d looked at that being and tried to imagine myself in the unrelieved and unbearable exaggerated <i>maleness</i> of that body—but I was far more physically powerful, and bigger, than I’d ever been before.</p><p>My attention deflector mesh was also torn on both sides and bits of it were scattered across Krok’s floor. I’d deal with it later. I wondered if I’d even ever needed it. I did grab more guns, just in case, and slung them over my back.</p><p>Grimlock was still a dinosaur when I met him in the cargo bay. He wasn’t fazed at all by my further transformation. “Cat want ride?”</p><p>“I’ve always wanted to be the cavalry,” I said, breathing out. I looked down at the corpse and tried to feel even a little bad about it, but I couldn’t. He was dead. I wasn’t dead, and neither was Grimlock, and neither of us were lobotomised. And that was the way I’d wanted it.</p><p>“Autobots roll out,” said Grimlock as we left the ship. Under the circumstances, I didn’t feel much like bothering to correct him. He’d figure it all out in due time.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. stay out or stay in</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>At the moment, she is engaged in the activity of ‘kicking aft and taking names’.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"I know a movie star, I've got her plastered to my wall<br/>Just like we're dear old friends, like she already knows me<br/>She's perfect as she seems, lifts me right out the mezzanine<br/>I finally fell in love, I've been waiting forever..."</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGMAuDmA5_8">Guster</a>, "Barrel of a Gun"</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Currently, the only thing that was keeping Needlenose going was the thought of receiving the package he’d commissioned for his leader. There had once been a time when he had admired Ravage’s stances, found hope in the words he had written and the way they filled in the cracks that Megatron left in his plans; of course, that had been before Galvatron had told him that Megatron had posted all that rot. But even then, he’d still believed in Soundwave. Now he knew they were both liars, just as much as Megatron had been, and if Galvatron was no better, well, at least he was honest about it. Peace was beyond them, but tyranny was still within reach.</p><p>Let the lying whore be reduced to his irreducible form, and better yet, his irreducible purpose. Let all such lying whores and poets be reduced to what they truly were, and given forms to suit their functions.</p><p>Let Soundwave know what it was like to see the being you loved most in the world broken beyond all repair.</p><p>Let them all stop pretending that deception was the thing they were against. It was all a bunch of lies, but so was everything else. And if you had to live on a hill built of lies it was better to live on the top, at least for as long as you could hold onto it.</p><p>His brother Tracks was lying in a heap and there was nothing he could do for him. Brawl had taken him out because he had threatened to bring the Prime down on them, because Tracks was a fragging idiot and always had been, but how was that different from anyone else that Needlenose had ever loved?</p><p>Meanwhile, the <i>Ark-7</i> spacebridge controls weren’t responding. The Autobots were just as frustrated as he was, but that was cold comfort. From what he was able to pick up, there was a virus loose on the Ark, seeking out a specific type of source code to rewrite, eating up processor time and essentially acting as a denial of service attack. As hilarious as it was to overhear Alpha Trion, of all people, losing his mind, they were still unable to open the bridge. Every time Needlenose tried to reclaim control, his HUD became a garden of blossoming alerts that warned him of dangers like ending up in deep space or opening up new shadow-zones.</p><p>The refugees—who were going to be angry enough when they found themselves on the Ark, and impressed into combat, rather than settling down at Sanctuary Station (which would have to be re-taken before they could land)—were getting restless, and he didn’t know what to say to them.</p><p>On top of that, he didn’t trust Starscream not to have a change of heart about the whole thing, particularly not if a riot broke out.</p><p>Then, finally, the bridge did open, and it was all he could do not to be trampled; he had to forget about Tracks, about everything except moving forward so as not to be crushed under hundreds of pedes, and making sure that those of them who were armed were positioned to deal with Arcee and Sideswipe, among others, on the other side.</p><p>
  <i>But then, they were not on the Ark.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>They were <b>on Io</b>.</i>
</p><p>The thin atmosphere was full of soot and smoke from the active volcanoes all around, and the rocky plateau they were on was lightly frosted in yellow snow. Rivulets of lava flowed everywhere below the cliffside.</p><p>The refugees were standing still, looking up at the unfamiliar sky in wonder.</p><p>Needlenose was unsurprised to see armed warframes patrolling—so much for Soundwave’s peace. Someone who looked a Pit of a lot like Ravage was going through the refugees, accompanied by a number of other dark-plated beastformers, including one who looked a Pit of a lot like Laserbeak. Every now and again, the cat-mech stopped, and ordered someone—usually someone Needlenose knew to be one of Galvatron’s agents—to be taken aside, and not led to a shuttle. Brawl was already in stasis cuffs.</p><p>It wasn’t Ravage, he didn’t think. This person was working quietly out in the open, neither evading nor seeking attention, all business. And then he remembered: the Cobalt Sentries. Beastformer enforcers, formerly under the command of the DJD. Now under Soundwave’s command. Which he couldn’t fault them for, knowing how Galvatron regarded beastformers.</p><p>And there, by the shuttle, was Soundwave himself. If he was worried about Ravage, it wasn’t showing.</p><p>“You. Stand aside.”</p><p>The voice was that of a femme, and a young one, but Needlenose had never seen someone who looked so much like Lugnut in his entire life. Her fist was raised, and he’d seen Lugnut’s fist in action more than once.</p><p>Needlenose stepped away from the throng. “I thought you lot were pacifists,” he said bitterly.</p><p>“We are when we’re allowed to be. Lord Soundwave forbade us to kill anyone,” the femme replied smartly. “And we won’t. Even those we know to be our enemies will be given a choice.”</p><p>“How much of a choice will it be, with you standing there with your Punch of Kill Everything?”</p><p>“As much of a choice as you give us,” she said. “My designation is Clobber of Kaon, and yours, I know, is Needlenose. I’ve been instructed to bring you directly to our glorious Lord Soundwave.” </p><p>Another warframe was cuffing him. “Lead on,” he said with a sigh.</p><p>Soundwave’s optics glowed through his visor. That made Needlenose smile. At least he was angry. “It is 15:32. Query: where does Needlenose believe Ravage is, at this moment?”</p><p>“Your shareware is being processed on Tebris VII. There’s a chance he’ll survive intact, or at least be repairable, but only if you let me talk to Lockdown.” It wasn’t much of a chance, but Needlenose didn’t want to be dead.</p><p>“That is not a synonym for conjunx,” Soundwave said evenly, “and that is a strange way to pronounce ‘operative’.” He was eerily calm, but Soundwave had always been creepy anyway. “I killed your lover because he was about to betray the sole advantage we had managed to gain to the Autobots, who already had us in captivity. I did not torture, mutilate, or sexually assault him. And I would not have had to do it if he hadn’t been <i><b>stupid</b></i>.”</p><p>“Take off these stasis cuffs and say that again.”</p><p>“Negative.” Soundwave regarded him blankly from behind his mask and visor, the glowing of his optics the only sign of emotion. “Can you confirm location? Offer proof of life?”</p><p>“You’re a cold thing, aren’t you?” Needlenose stared at him. “Is your spark as dark as your paint?”</p><p>“Soundwave: knows you are lying—or at the very least, mistaken. Spark-bond is still intact. Does Needlenose even know what that feels like?”</p><p>Needlenose could just imagine the smug little smile that had to be hiding behind that blast mask. All he could hope for now was to survive long enough to see Soundwave find out he was wrong. Of course the big glitch would have to remind him that Horri-Bull and he had never performed the Four Acts, and that while they had interfaced from time to time, whenever Horri-Bull felt like it, they had never merged sparks.</p><p>Needlenose considered saying he did know what it felt like, just because; but the nasty telepath would know he’d lied, and that would make him feel more pathetic, not less. “I believed in you. I even believed in your whore, until someone told me all his alleged drivel was actually posted by the Lord High Autobot Megatron.”</p><p>Soundwave closed his optics for half a click, then ex-vented slowly. “You will stop referring to Ravage in that way while you are in my presence.” Soundwave did not so much as raise his voice. “Ravage is unharmed and unafraid. She is, however, annoyed. I would not be surprised to learn that she has killed your agent. At the moment, she is engaged in the activity of ‘kicking aft and taking names’.” He turned to Clobber. “Take him into custody with the others. If Ravage has no special requests upon her return, we will then find out how much Galvatron wants him back.”</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~*~*~*~</p>
</div>Krok had known something was wrong since they’d first approached the perimeter of Demus’ scrapyards. Although Demus had clearly been looking for workers, he had not expected to see the place deserted, without so much as a guard in place to prevent any thievery. Misfire had even suggested they just take what they needed and leave, and Fulcrum and Crankcase had been all for it.<p>Spinister had had nothing to say.</p><p>But Krok had become <i>concerned</i>, even though he barely knew Demus, and had quietly cursed himself for not asking Soundwave to send whatever intel he had when Ravage wasn’t around. And then he’d clicked on his ‘communicator’ to soothe himself, and learned that they were surrounded by <i>hundreds</i> of Decepticon sparks, despite there being no other people around for as far as his optics could see.</p><p>When Demus finally came out to greet them, he looked <i>nervous</i>: far more uncomfortable than the presence of non-monoformers could explain, and he also kept looking over his shoulder. He’d started in on a pitch about how anyone who expected to work for him would have to be willing to use an anti-transformation chip while on the premises.</p><p>Krok had stopped him by raising his hand—he’d almost wanted to plant that hand on Demus’ chest, and tell him to calm the frag down, and ask what had him so spooked. But he hadn’t. “We’re not here for jobs,” he’d said. “We have an employer. I just need scrap that I can use to patch my ship’s hull till we can get to a proper repair shop. And I’m willing to pay a fair price for it.”</p><p>Demus’ eyes had flared wide, as if he’d seen some kind of impossible hope. “Fine,” he’d said. “The price is your prisoner.”</p><p>Krok’s jaw would’ve dropped—to the ground—if it hadn’t been welded on. And an argument had broken out. Spinister and Crankcase had been arguing the pros and cons of giving Grimlock up with Fulcrum, who thought it sounded like a bad idea, and the sort of thing that they as Decepticons ought not be doing. Misfire was losing his mind, and at one point he had looked like might pull a weapon in order to protect his addled friend. Clearly he hadn’t been thinking straight—did he think he could fix the ship and get Ravage to the Sol system all by himself?</p><p>Krok hadn’t been too worried, because Misfire loved all of his friends, hated fighting, and could only hit a target if there was no ambiguity in his feelings. He could see Crankcase’s point as well. There was no balance to be found between the incredibly bad feeling he had about every single bit of this, the reaction Soundwave had had to them coming here at all, his own Decepticon ethics, his affection for Misfire, the difficulty of paying for repairs to the ship when they weren’t actively in Soundwave’s employ, and the number of those repairs that had been necessary because of Grimlock’s actions.</p><p>When it had become apparent to Demus that not only did he have them over a barrel, some of them were even enthusiastic about the idea of giving up Grimlock, his entire face had brightened. “Hey,” he’d said. “You can have whatever you want out of here if you’ll also give up your <i>passenger</i>.”</p><p>Krok had been livid with rage, though he had also been wondering how the frag Demus had known that they <i>had</i> a passenger and simultaneously tormented by guilt given that the whole place appeared to be empty, and they had left Ravage alone on the ship with Grimlock as her sole and singular defender.</p><p>Spinister had transformed into a feral blur of spite and blown Demus’ fragging head off. “The toys!” he’d cried out, indicating the stacks of Roboid toys on pallets, prepared for shipment, that were everywhere around them. “<i>They’re <b>people</b>!</i>”</p><p>And Fortress Maximus, guns a-blazing, had come barrelling round the corner to complete the Trinity with a shot to Demus’ spark chamber, as his transformation cog, of course, had long ago been removed.</p><p>And now, the five Scavengers were staring across Demus’ dead body at Fortress Maximus and Red Alert. “We’ll be taking Grimlock back with us,” Fortress Maximus said quietly, “and for that matter, the rest of you, too. Who’s your passenger, anyway?”</p><p>“Don’t be ridiculous,” Red Alert replied, before any of the Scavengers had even had a chance to say they’d die before they gave up that information. “If Demus wanted the passenger, it’s got to be Megatron’s missing cat. The DJD probably figures he’ll do whatever they want him to do if they can get Ravage turned into one of these…<i>whatever</i> those are.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. strike a match, go on and do it</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>"Take my revolution," he said.</p><p>So I did.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"Sunny came home with a list of names<br/>She didn't believe in transcendence<br/>And it's time for a few small repairs, she said<br/>Sunny came home with a vengeance..."</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfKKBDFCiIA">Shawn Colvin</a>, "A Few Small Repairs"</p><p>Please read and heed the warnings in the tags. They're there for a reason, and this chapter is full of the reasons they're there.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Grimlock and I circled the perimeter of Demus’ scrapyards, looking carefully at each entrance. I had expected to see comings and goings from them all, but only two had been recently used. We chose to go in through the one where the security was non-existent, and the gate had been blasted open.</p><p>I was searching for familiar scents—particularly Misfire’s, since I knew it better than those of the other Scavengers. But once we were inside the main building, my nasal and vomeronasal sensors were immediately drenched in a miasma of rancid beastformer pheromones. The top notes were painfully bright metallic sparks of shock and disbelief, fading fast but still fizzing up over the main accord of despair, defeat, unrelenting pain, mindless fear and unwilling submission, with basenotes of vented waste, spilled energon and purged fuel. So many of my people had lost their lives here that I could not even discern the scents of rare frametypes, let alone single individuals. This wasn’t a scrapyard, it was a death camp.</p><p>I immediately understood why Soundwave hadn’t told me his suspicions. He’d been right that I wouldn’t have been able to leave it alone if I’d heard of it. But now that I knew, it was all I could do to take the first step past the threshold. People like me—and only people like me—had suffered here. I wanted to go in and set the entire place on fire, but I couldn’t pick up one pede and put it in front of the other.</p><p>Grimlock leaned over and sniffed me. “Us keep moving,” he said, very softly. His hackles were raised. I looked up at him, and be bunted his head into mine, and I knew he was also aware of the carnage that we were about to walk into.</p><p>One of the guns I’d dragged out of Krok’s room was a lightweight laser cannon. I slung it over my shoulder. I didn’t have contacts to use it as an integrated weapon, but it had a trigger that probably worked just fine.</p><p>“Someone’s gonna wish they were never sparked,” I said to Grimlock, lightly resting my hands on his flank, so that we could both feel that we were alive and in motion. I dropped my emotional processing routines to a much lower rank on the priority tree; I needed my rage to move forward through this, but I needed to be able to control it. And I didn’t need the fear that welled up from my animal soul.</p><p>My optics adjusted easily to the dimness inside the warehouse, where I was confronted with pallets stacked with brightly-coloured boxes, each with the stylised image of a lovely, lively mechanimal printed upon it. <i><b>ROBOIDS</b></i>, the boxes said, in a cheerful stick-like font. The glyphs had been made to look like they had been drawn by an inexperienced newspark, programmed to write by hand but with very little practise. But they hadn’t been. They were far too artfully balanced not to have been the work of an artist.</p><p>This wasn’t a one-mech operation. There were no workers here now, and I wasn’t sure why, but someone had drawn the artwork, had printed the boxes. Someone had packed them. This couldn’t be the work of only one mech.</p><p>The Autobots wondered why I mocked the notion of the Reintegration Act, as if we’d ever even once been integrated. But no matter how many laws they said they’d enacted, I still couldn’t walk down a street without encountering someone who’d cheerfully see me destroyed just for being what I am. They had to be polite to me in public, now—for values of polite that didn’t exclude trying to pet me before asking my name—but they hated me still.</p><p>Krok had met this Demus on The Big Conversation, so he’d apparently been a Decepticon once. But so had Galvatron. Not everyone whose help Megatron had accepted had shared our ideals. Megatron had not been able to keep hate from sinking into him too; but at least in Megatron’s presence, the haters had had to be polite—and also, keep their hands to themselves.</p><p>Without Megatron, people like me were never going to be safe in any faction at all, unless Soundwave and I stepped up as we were planning to do. Two of us, doing the job that one mech had done before. Would we be able to balance each other and keep ourselves sane?</p><p>How could I fight a hate this entrenched and malignant without becoming hateful myself? It wasn’t something I could kill, and it wasn’t something I could wash away with love. Even if I were capable of loving someone who hated me as much as these people did—and I absolutely was not—they wouldn’t be able to accept it from me.</p><p>The boxes were of various sizes. Some were small enough to fit an aviform like Laserbeak or Buzzsaw. Some were even smaller. Some were big enough to fit someone like me, at least as I’d been before my frame refit. And some were bigger still.</p><p>I found myself growing used to the stench, which revolted me. I walked up to the boxes and read the text on them, almost immediately wishing I hadn’t.</p><p>“Fully responsive to tactile stimulation! Lifelike simulation of emotion and sensation!”</p><p>The picture showed a person, some sort of immature organic, petting a mechanimal, who arched up into the touch. I knew that wasn’t the intended use for these toys. And the emotion and sensation would be real for the being trapped inside.</p><p>
  <i>This was what Galvatron wanted for me.</i>
</p><p>Needlenose’s motivation was sickening, but it made a kind of sense. Soundwave had taken the person he loved, so Needlenose would take me. It was all about Soundwave and Horri-Bull, and he might not have been willing to condone what they did here if he hadn’t been blinded with rage and the lust for revenge.</p><p>Galvatron and I had spoken less than a half-dozen times in the past four million years. He’d never spared a thought for me as long as I’d been one of Soundwave’s cassettes; he’d assumed I was just as much a toy as these beings who surrounded me. That was the place he wanted to put me back into. </p><p>“Configurable token resistance for training play!”</p><p>The picture on the box showed the immature organic training a small mechanimal with treats. I knew that wasn’t really what the caption meant. Somehow, on the innocent face of what I was meant to think was a child, the artist had managed subtly to capture the lewd expression on Senator Ratbat’s face when he’d brought the brace of us home and smiled at me, before he had led me away from my siblings to tell me I was going to be his special favourite, and to give me my first taste of high-grade before he laid claim to me.</p><p>The ability to express token resistance would only make things worse. Particularly the process of learning exactly what sorts of token resistance one’s master liked, and which would get one hurt worse. Learned helplessness is a terrible state, but learning it is even worse.</p><p>I had wanted to think of the room as a mausoleum, and the boxes—almost beautiful—as coffins. But you’re <i>safe</i> inside a grave. Being thrown into a smelter would have been better than dying this way; at least it had an ending.</p><p>Grimlock had transformed into a mech again. He opened one of the boxes clumsily and set its occupant on the ground: it was a quadruped, something like a turbofox, but smaller and blue. I leaned over and switched it on. Its optics came online, and it stood there, motionless, waiting to be told what to do.</p><p>Grimlock looked down at me. “Dead?”</p><p>I shook my head. “I don’t know. It appears to be functioning. Sort of.”</p><p>I opened a second box, but I dropped the occupant in shock. I’d never been close to Slugfest, but I had never wanted to be reunited with any of Soundwave’s other operatives like this. His panel flipped open when he fell, and I saw that all his arrays were in place, both spike and valve present and probably working, because of course they would have to be working.</p><p>With three well-aimed shots from my blaster pistol, I put Slugfest out of his misery forever, and resolved not to tell Soundwave, even though I knew that he’d probably get it out of me with time. Then I whirled on the wall of boxes, laser cannon primed, but Grimlock ran in front of me.</p><p>“<i><b>No</b></i>! Cat not shoot!”</p><p>“Wouldn’t you <i>want</i> me to shoot you if you were them?” It came out half a sob. I despaired of him understanding me; he wasn’t all there. The still small part of me who remembered being left on Ratbat’s desk with energon puddling under her on the blotter was very much there, and she wanted to scream until somebody noticed her.</p><p>I didn’t have time for her now. At least she’d been <i>able</i> to scream. I decided not to waste any energy on keeping the tears in. I could try to keep quiet, or I could try to keep my optics from leaking, and quiet was more important.</p><p>Grimlock put his hand on my shoulder. “Misfire,” he said. “Maybe help.”</p><p>“Sure, buddy.” I knew that whatever Misfire was doing for Grimlock, however kind it had been—and Misfire was one of the kindest people I knew—it would not be enough for the people in these boxes. I would never feel guilty for ending Slugfest’s misery.</p><p>But I didn’t know that they <i>couldn’t</i> be saved.</p><p>I was on autopilot, and I opened more boxes, and I was really grateful not to know any of the other people I found inside them. The occupants stood there, waiting to be commanded. I had to fight with myself not to blow them away.</p><p>“What sneaky cat doing?”</p><p>I wasn’t sure I had an answer for that, but when I opened my mouth, words came out of it: “Shock troops.”</p><p>Grimlock nodded, and started to open the big boxes—the ones I couldn’t even have reached the tops of. Inside them were equiforms. They were huge—they were big enough for Misfire and Krok to have ridden—I couldn’t imagine what sort of organic child we were meant to think could have ‘played’ with them.</p><p>“Follow,” I said to them all. As we moved through the warehouse, the Roboids moved with us, silent as dead things, stopping when we stopped to open another box, marching along as we marched.</p><p>Then I heard Spinister screaming that all of the toys were people, which was followed by two shots. Someone else started speaking, and Grimlock <i>froze</i>. Whoever it was that was talking, he knew them. I hugged him, and I wrapped my field around us both. I couldn’t send him comforting thoughts like Soundwave could, or lance the festering abscesses of inexpressible pain. But I could be there for him, and be glad he was there for me, too.</p><p>“Us keep moving,” I whispered. He transformed back into his alt-mode, leaning over to let me mount, and I got back up on his back.</p><p>I listened: two hostiles, and my friends. The hostiles intended to take us all captive. Frag that.</p><p>The equiforms assembled around us. They also waited in eerie, unsettling silence. “Cry havoc,” I said under my breath, “and let slip the beasts of war.” It wasn’t as funny as I’d hoped it would be, but it made things a little less awful.</p><p>I pointed at the door into the office. “<i><b>Charge</b></i>!” I shouted, and the Roboids did. So did Grimlock.</p><p>“Nobody’s going anywhere!” I shouted, and went straight for the biggest of the two Autobots, not so much because that was my intention, but because that was where Grimlock wanted to go. I didn’t know him, but the markings and kibble and size said Fortress Maximus. And that was who had been in charge of Garrus-9 when Grimlock had escaped from there, so that made sense. I thought about telling Grimlock not to kill him, but I wasn’t sure if I was actually opposed to Grimlock taking him out, given the wrench I was sure he was going to toss into our plans.</p><p>I recognised Red Alert, but apparently he didn’t recognise me. “That can’t be Ravage!” he yelled, leaping out of the way of a rampaging equiform. “That might be the cat that ate him though!”</p><p>“Grimlock, calm <i>down</i>!” Fortress Maximus snapped. “We need to have a little talk, you and I—”</p><p>“I don’t think so,” I said. “I think you and your friend need to get the frag out of here before anything worse happens.” The equiforms and the smaller pets were running wild. They wouldn’t stop until I gave the word. They weren’t really able to tell who was a friend and who wasn’t, and that was a bit of a problem, but they were keeping Fortress Maximus and Red Alert from drawing a consistent bead on my friends.</p><p>“I’m not afraid of a herd of equiforms, an escaped prisoner with half his wits, and six Decepticons who weren’t even expecting me. Not after Simanzi,” Fortress Maximus said, although we had him backed up against the wall.</p><p>Red Alert looked at him as if he were out of his mind, but it was the kind of big talk I expected from someone like Fortress Maximus.</p><p>“And yes, Red Alert, that’s Ravage. We paid to refit his frame on board the <i>Lost Light</i> before he took off for parts unknown. He doesn’t seem to be feeling a whole lot of gratitude, which doesn’t really surprise me--”</p><p>“Would you mind using the right pronouns for her?” Fulcrum snapped. I thought it was awfully sweet of him, even though that was no more than five spots from the bottom on the list of things that were currently irritating me.</p><p>Fortress Maximus just looked up at me across the laser cannon I had trained on him, his expression incredibly calm and relaxed. I didn’t let his calmness bother me. I’m pretty good at that psych thing myself, though I’d never tried it with him.</p><p>“Ravage.” He smiled. “You know,” he said very quietly, “we haven’t had <i>your</i> trial yet. You want to make things worse for yourself than they already are? We’re not falling for that Knights of Cybertron trick again. Your ship is damaged, and you and your friends won’t be able to get away from mine. Maybe you should’ve stayed on the <i>Lost Light</i>. They had almost started to trust you there. But you’re like any other Decepticon, aren’t you? Only thinking about yourself.”</p><p>“Of course,” I said evenly. “That is exactly why I came this far out of my way to liberate all of these other beastformers.”</p><p>“And not because another ‘con shot you out of the sky?” Fortress Maximus appeared to be deeply amused. That made one of us. I wondered if he’d even noticed the lubricant running out of my optics. <i>Frag</i>.</p><p>“All right,” I said. “You got me there. But I thank you for your concern on behalf of my people. Wouldn’t it be better if you just looked into this operation and let us go? Or do you really think one guy did all this by himself?” I gestured to everything around us.</p><p>“I think I’m looking at some of the other parties to this,” Fortress Maximus replied.</p><p>“As you appear to know,” I replied, “I’ve been on the <i>Lost Light</i> until very recently. Even if I didn’t care about others like myself, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to get involved in something like this.”</p><p>Fortress Maximus looked closely at each of my friends. I kept my attention firmly focused on him. “You wouldn’t have, no. But the rest of them?” He shrugged. “Here they are, with both Grimlock and you on their ship. For all I know, that little firefight was a benefit performance just for me.”</p><p>“Really.” I glared at him. “Then why are you the only person in this room that Grimlock wants to tear apart? He’s not frightened of anyone else in here! Let me tell you who the guy that shot us down was. His name was Lockdown. He’s been a bounty hunter since the end of the war. He was paid by fragging Needlenose and Galvatron to deliver me here. He’s lying in the dirt outside of the W.A.P., where I left him after I killed him. I am so fragging tired of people deciding to hurt me because they want something from Soundwave or Megatron. I was a member of the Conclave and the High Command on my own accord, and I have <i>things to do</i> that you are <i>between me and doing</i>.”</p><p>Fortress Maximus’ optics flared. He hadn’t been expecting that from me. “I’m perfectly aware that you’ve been quite destructive on your own account. I know better than to believe those people who say you can’t fight the bestial instinct to submit to those more powerful than you.”</p><p>“Good,” I said, “because repeating it won’t make me lose my wits whether you believe it or not.”</p><p>Fortress Maximus shrugged. “And I certainly don’t think you were ever ‘just following orders’. Your writing hasn’t made things easy for the enforcers on Cybertron, or anywhere else. Everyone who’s been paying attention to what’s going on in the Decepticon enclaves knows what you really believe.”</p><p>“Including you? Then you know I won’t submit to a show trial at the hands of a government I consider illegitimate, when I am one of the sovereign rulers of Destron,” I told him firmly. I hadn’t precisely intended to declare myself to the Autobots at exactly this point in time, but I wasn’t going to get out of this by pretending I <i>wasn’t</i> someone important.</p><p>Still, it sounded like Krok was choking behind me. I felt a little bad for him about that, especially since I couldn’t take my optics away from my opponent. That’s not how psych ops works, especially not when your face was designed to evoke ridiculous primal fears about big bad Predacons twice your size.</p><p>“There is no ‘Destron’,” Fortress Maximus replied, in an infuriatingly condescending tone that really did make me want to leave claw marks on his face, especially given my absolutely calm and settled state of mind after walking my way through that warehouse. “It’s a legend, a myth, a story you people like to tell yourselves to help yourselves recharge at night. It can’t exist without the Decepticons, and Megatron disbanded the Decepticons.”</p><p>I laughed out loud; he’d certainly picked a terrible group of Decepticons to pull that line on. “That speech that Orion wrote for Megatron wasn’t his dumbest move, but it certainly wasn’t the smartest. An <i>Autobot</i> can’t disband <i>the Decepticons</i>! The moment he put on that badge, Megatron lost every legal claim he ever had to authority over any of us! He doesn’t have the legal or moral right to disincorporate our party or our claim to sovereignty.”</p><p>“Yeah!” said Crankcase from somewhere behind me. “You tell him, Trophy!”</p><p>“So what were you doing on the <i>Lost Light</i> with him?”</p><p>“Aside from the obvious?” I snorted. “None of your fragging business, Fortress Maximus. After I realised that I was pursuing a lost cause, and no, I will not tell you what cause that may or may not have been, I cut my losses like a sensible person.”</p><p>“This is not a convincing argument as to why I should let you leave here alive outside of my custody, Ravage,” said Fortress Maximus, in a very self-satisfied tone.</p><p>“Here’s the thing you don’t understand,” I said. “If you want the Decepticons to really stand down and accept things the way they are, you need to let them <i>go</i>. It’s actually really sad that you can’t see I’m trying to <i>help</i> you. Real peace doesn’t come from putting people in the kind of ghetto Soundwave’s been getting refugees from. When you decide to deal with us, with the ones of us who actually don’t want to continue Megatron’s war, you’ll find that we’re surprisingly reasonable, even if our reasoning isn’t the same as yours. Meanwhile, if Galvatron hasn’t taken your spacebridge yet, he’s about to, and <i>Soundwave</i> is likely to be the person who stops him.”</p><p>Red Alert scowled at me. “That checks out,” he grumbled. “There was an attempt on the spacebridge. Whole bunch of mechs got through, though.”</p><p>“They went to Sanctuary,” I said. “Not Earth. And not any ships or bases you may or may not have in that system, even though the EDC has an alliance with <i>us</i>. You can thank my conjunx for that. Soundwave Kymatos, big blue guy. Prettiest face you’ll never see.”</p><p>“You’ve all committed war crimes!” Fortress Maximus snapped, starting to get a little bit heated.</p><p>“So have you,” I said. “We’re willing to acknowledge the legitimacy of your government if you’re willing to acknowledge the legitimacy of ours, and then we can sort this out like adults. All of the assets you’ve stolen from our people seem to me like a reasonable start on reparations, but we’re not turning anyone over to be tried by a jury, especially not one that’s not of their peers.”</p><p>“Do you have <i>any respect whatsoever</i> for the rule of law?”</p><p>I cycled air back through my intakes, and then I shook my head. “The law doesn’t rule. People rule. That’s true even among Autobots. People interpret the laws very differently.” It was the first time I’d consciously considered the notion, but I strongly suspected that Ultra Magnus would have enforced the Tyrest Accord very differently in this place at this time. Or maybe I just hoped so, given that he hadn’t had any problem benefitting from the regime which had oppressed the rest of us for millions of years while he hid his true nature; I couldn’t like him as much as Megatron did.</p><p>I continued. “If I were going to consent to let your people try me, you’d have to find enough beastformers to fill the stands, since I can’t trust anyone else not to think I’m a filthy piece of shareware with barely enough processing power to run a dimmerswitch. Starscream spent just as much time fragging Megatron as I did, and somehow people still think he’s got brains enough to run a government. <i>I</i> think that’s because he hasn’t got a muzzle and he’s never been a quadruped, but what would I know about <i><b>that</b></i> in a universe where <i>this</i> place can exist?”</p><p>Fortress Maximus winced when I mentioned Megatron. “That’s only a rumour.”</p><p>“No it isn’t,” I said with a snort. “I saw them <i>do it on his throne</i>. He’d say the same thing about me, and we’d both be telling the truth, but I don’t deny that I did it as well.” Then I shrugged. “But we’re amica now.”</p><p>Red Alert burst out laughing. I didn’t give him the satisfaction of diverting any attention his way.</p><p>Somewhere behind me, I heard Misfire shout, “Spinister, no!” just as the floor under Fortress Maximus and Red Alert’s afts and pedes disappeared with a loud explosion. Below us, there was a lot of broken ceiling, a lot of dust, and a really freaky looking lab with tanks full of something organic that looked profoundly disgusting. Then the roof just above it fell in.</p><p>I herded all the equiforms to stand on the piece of fallen roof. “Stay there until the sky is full dark,” I told them, hoping they understood. “Then do whatever you want.”  I looked at the rest of them. “Stay here, where it’s safe. Don’t follow me.”</p><p>“Let’s get the frag out of here,” Krok said stiffly.</p><p>Spinister had an unconscious green feliform with black accents who looked a Pit of a lot like I had once looked slung over his shoulder. She had an Autobot badge. I frowned, because I didn’t know her. Which meant that even after the project in Stanix had been shut down, someone had made more of us. I wondered if her alt had been a cassette, and if I should take her home with me.</p><p>Once we had enough scrap to patch the hull, we made our way back to the W.A.P. in silence, wanting to put the place behind us as quickly as possible.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. sanctuary, and the nature of concordia</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>All she is saying is: give peace a chance.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"In the air I looked down at the time<br/>And mistook it for the radio<br/>I thought about the little choices we made along<br/>And the song played on as if it didn't know<br/>May we all be forsaken<br/>Like the black man trying to breathe,<br/>Or the woman who's never believed<br/>May we all be mistaken<br/>About our current state<br/>About the current of hate..."</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isJZyL7DN2U">Dispatch</a>, "May We All"<br/></p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <i>As posted to <a href="https://tfwiki.net/wiki/The_Big_Conversation">The Big Conversation</a> by <b>@cybercatastrophe</b>.</i>
</p><p><i>Site Administrator <b>@EmeraldWings</b> has verified that this post was actually made by <b>@cybercatastrophe</b>.</i><br/>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</p><p>When we acknowledge that telling lies about what people deserve and what people owe leads to the enforced assignment of some to toil on the behalf of others, and from there to taxonomies and hierarchies, the logical conclusion for many of us has been that we can only ever have that which we can take and defend for ourselves as individuals, and that only the very strongest of us can afford to take care of another person.</p><p>But there is a fallacy here, for this too leads to the establishment of hierarchies. In their purest form—the empire of unsheathed blades and hungers—the hierarchy is constantly shifting, and it is impossible to accomplish much of anything, because we are all at war with one another. As a result of this we fall into place behind our leaders, knowing that we are stronger together than apart, and our leaders become warlords.</p><p>There is a third way.</p><p>The third way is hidden from those who live singly, but obvious to those of us who are voluntarily bound to one another. If you have an amica, or a conjunx, or a former mentor, or a newspark under your guidance, you are already aware that there are many kinds of strength we can draw from each other, and that caring for someone else does not have to be a burden or a drain on our resources. Nobody is forced to care for the people they love; they do it because the other person’s happiness and welfare is essential to their own. This only becomes a weakness if we do not appreciate, respect and nurture in others what we live in ourselves. </p><p>It is impossible for us to survive in a world where all bear an equal burden of labour and all must defend themselves at all times, except in an army where we are at the mercy of our leaders. We are not all able to work. We are physically able to work when we come into the world, but we have no discernment and cannot make wise decisions, even if we were fortunate enough to have come online with a complete library of factual information, multilevel emotional processing, and motivators unconstrained by hierarchical coding. It takes a combination of mentoring and life experience for a mechanism to develop the necessary pathways to create robust value equations.</p><p>We are not all equally able to fight when we come into the world. We have frames of differing sizes, strengths and abilities, and while form does not dictate function, it is by the developed will that we function outside the constraints of our forms. We do not come into the world with a developed will. It is our right to develop it, but how do we develop it if we are forced to defend ourselves before we are ready to do it?</p><p>No-one is owed support or defence, but we give it to those whom we love when it’s needed, and to give it gives us strength. We draw renewed purpose and will from those whom we love. We are cared for by those whom we love. My conjunx makes me energon sweets and brings me things that I want but can’t find. And once, he held me in his arms and taught me the difference between intimacy and abuse. I shield him from the overwhelming world outside when he is tired and make everything smell beautiful. And once, I showed him how to guard himself against a world he was born plugged into and unarmoured. My amica infuriates me, but reminds me that I and I alone are responsible for fulfilling my Will and my Purpose. He has failed more desperately than anyone I know, because he dared more than anyone else ever had, and yet he still finds it within him the strength to encourage my daring. Some of the people my conjunx has mentored continue to help with his work, however they can—and some of them remain in our lives and are always there when the darkness is deepest and we are besieged.</p><p>Here is the truth of the world.</p><p>We are all supported by a net of connections. This is what I call ‘concordia’. Your conjunx has an amica; your amica has a conjunx; the people who mentored you, if you were so lucky, have colleagues and friends. You have colleagues and friends. If you have creche sibs, or were created with a group of the same or similar models, you have siblings, and they have enduring partners, and they mentor, and you have enduring partnerships, too.</p><p>As we go through life, we suffer injuries and infections, losses and adversities. We may be temporarily or permanently rendered unable to defend ourselves, to perform intellectual labour, to perform physical labour. But our lives are not worthless to us, nor do we cease to give affection, purpose, will and strength to those whom we love and are loved by.</p><p>It is wrong to say that the young must work for the old. It is wrong to say that the old must give up and pass into darkness for the young. It is wrong to say that those who are injured are not worth repairing unless we can measure their physical contributions to the world. It is also wrong to force others to make these repairs against their will. But it is not necessary.</p><p>No-one has the right to make use of our labour or demand our protection without our consent. But we can freely choose to give protection and share what we have. We cannot force anyone else to do this. But the more of us who recognise that we live in a web of connections, the stronger that web will be, and we can help one another voluntarily. Those who refuse to participate cannot demand support and protection from others, but even then, we are still free to give.</p><p>Even if no-one has a right to anything they cannot grab for themselves, we can acknowledge the many ways in which people support and protect us, and honour that, rather than demanding that those who are weaker than we are must ingratiate and demean themselves to make it worth our while to help them care for themselves and for us.</p><p>The failure of our Cause is rooted in the misunderstanding of the difference between rights and obligations. We all have the right to whatever we need—and to take it, if no-one will give it, provided we can. But none of us exists in isolation. We cannot compel others to care for one another or to contribute to the common good, but in a world that is at peace, those of us who are willing to give, to protect and to help will always outnumber the others. That is <i>concordia</i>. It is not the intimacy of <i>amicitia</i> or <i>conjunxion</i>.</p><p>We don’t have to collect taxes by force. We can collect from those who are willing to give; there will always be enough, if no one is compelled and none is set over another. Love is what moves us to care for those who cannot care for themselves, and love is voluntary. It cannot be compelled, nor can it be reliably evoked by any form of relation.</p><p>Sexual contact does not create love. Taking a sparkling into your home does not create love. Even spark-merging does not create love, if it is not already there; the merging of sparks without caring is dangerous, and when compelled, is just as much or more destructive than any other form of forced interface.</p><p>But love can be transitive, and we can recognise that love is transitive. The foundation of broader social relationships is rooted in uncompelled choices made through the understanding of reciprocal love. My amica owes nothing to my conjunx by virtue of being my amica, but my amica has had to learn that I cannot be happy if my conjunx is in pain. As long as any of us is in pain, we are all a little less happy; those who will not voluntarily share and alleviate pain will experience it anyway, because hunger, disease and cruelty cannot be contained if we permit them to flourish.</p><p>Although such words as ‘amiconara’ are not considered proper in the lexicon of Neocybex, people still use them, because they understand that when multiple persons are in relationship with a single person, they move into relationship with one another, and that denying that will lead to misery. Love cannot be compelled, but love of a third party can bring the needs and wishes of two individuals who do not love one another into alignment. We also need to preserve and care for those with whom we work toward common goals.</p><p>Therefore, through relationships of amicitia and conjunxion, mentorship and collegiality, we find ourselves connected to persons for whom we care, even to the point of being connected to those we have never met; for if we would ensure our own happiness, and that of those whom we love, we have to acknowledge the mutual interests of many others, and seek to live our lives in an alliance of mutual concord.</p><p>Concordia is the reason why we voluntarily choose to support one another, even though we do not permit ourselves to be forced into the support of another. When extended to logical (but absolutely truthful) absurdity, a conscientious person may acknowledge that any person with whom they must interact may either currently or in the future be a person of importance to our own people of importance.</p><p>So: understanding the truth of the world makes us unsheathe our blades and take them into our hands. But understanding the truth of people guides us in deciding when the use of the blade is the most appropriate response, and also when extending a hand is more likely to produce the results we desire.</p><p>Self-preservation is also transitive. Those who understand this will choose to defend our society as a whole against invasion, unmerited violence, and disease, even if the role we must play in that defence is constrained by the state of our health, abilities, natural and wilful inclinations, and range of tolerable functioning. We protect the loved ones of others, because allowing those people to suffer and die creates resentments that will destroy our society.</p><p>Even those who have always lived in disjunction and may never be able to comprehend this sense of connection can be supported and protected by these webs of care and connection, and those who choose to do so are acknowledging that there are many kinds of wounds, it is impossible to heal a wound by force, and that even the rankest villain among us is still a sapient being—and when we fail to acknowledge the basic dignity inherent in sapience, we damage our own collective sense of our dignity. Even when someone must be removed from the world for the good of all others, it can be done in a manner that is personal and dignified and does not compel anyone else to become an executioner.</p><p>This is the foundation of rule and justice without compulsion, and the heart of peace without tyranny. Life in Sanctuary requires a commitment to the maintenance of concordia, as well as a commitment to truth and an unwillingness to be deceived. These two truths we hold to be self-evident: no-one has the right to another person's labour, protection, or love; but none of us exists alone, and we can choose to share with everyone who shares with us, or we can choose to fight for everything until we can’t, and then we choose to starve, or die alone.</p><p>We choose to live together, and not to die alone.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. slowly twisting, in the wind</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>That's <i>not</i> what we do with corpses, silly Cat.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"She set your goldfish free, and now she's sighing<br/>Blew out your pilot light and made a wish--<br/>She doesn't have to have her DB's record back now;<br/>There's not a lot of things that she'll take back..."</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGNma09t69o">They Might Be Giants</a>, "Twisting"</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I knew something was dreadfully wrong among my friends, because Crankcase didn’t laugh his aft off watching me drive like a squeaky-geared newspark over uneven ground with a loud, unhappy cybercat pacing between my ‘driver’ and ‘passenger’ seats. I had only practised driving on exercise tracks aboard the <i>Lost Light</i>.</p><p>Misfire and Spinister could, of course, fly. Spinister carried Krok. Misfire carried Fulcrum. Crankcase and Grimlock carried the scrap metal. But it still took longer than I’d hoped to get back to the W.A.P.; even if I’d been able to drive as well and as fast as my hot Jaguar XK alt-mode might have suggested, everyone was weighed down by something or someone else.</p><p>Once we arrived, Spin took my little passenger inside and disappeared into his laboratory, which was also our infirmary and probably the only place on the W.A.P. where it would even have been <i>possible</i> to set up a sterile field. I’d made an attempt at cleaning my second day into the trip and then given up.</p><p>Grimlock, who was rightfully exhausted, went inside the ship to recharge. The rest of us got down to work on the ship, because even if we weren’t all skilled at ship repair, we were welding scrap to the hull, which is not exactly something that requires a brilliant engineer, and we wanted to leave. We needed to get the frag off Tebris VII before Fortress Maximus and Red Alert got out of Demus’ warehouse and laboratory.</p><p>I was sincerely hoping they would prioritise rescuing the innocent Roboids and deem that laboratory worth examining. If I was in luck, it would be something not only disgusting, but dear to Galvatron’s sick, twisted spark, that the Autobots would completely slag up and save us the trouble of having to get someone else past them and out here.</p><p>“What’s up with Spin?” I asked softly. “Does he really think he can fix her?” I thought a little guiltily about Slugfest, but I couldn’t say I would have blamed me if I’d been him. Soundwave wouldn’t, either. Honestly, if the Autobots hadn’t been trapped in that lab they’d have probably all had to restrain me bodily to keep me from filling the place with ordnance and firing into it from low orbit.</p><p>“Probably,” said Crankcase. “I hope he’s right. He’ll be scraplets to live with for days if he fails.”</p><p>“Just like always,” Fulcrum grumbled. His bad mood wasn’t going away any time soon. Fancy fuel was the surest way to calm him down, and we’d eaten all of the takeout; we were back on standard rations. He could subsist without complaint on siphoned energon and minerals an Insecticon would have thought twice about consuming…but normalcy didn’t suit him well.</p><p>Misfire picked up Lockdown’s body. “Why’d you throw him out of the ship like that, Rav?”</p><p>I shrugged. “What do we usually do with corpses? There’s not time to bury or smelt him.”</p><p>Misfire pulled me into a side-hug, which was a little gross given how dirty we all were, plus the part where he had a corpse in one arm. “That’s <i>not</i> what we do with corpses, silly Cat.” Then he picked up the body and dragged it back into the ship. “You made the kill. You get first call if we find anything good on him.”</p><p>I sat down on the ground in kind of a heap and laughed: just wild, hysterical laughter, with my optics overflowing again. Krok came over to sit with me but I waved him off. “No,” I said. “You should work. We all should. I will when I have my aft back under me, promise.”</p><p>Krok gave me a dubious look, but I wasn’t wrong, so he did go back to the work.</p><p>A few astromins later, when Misfire came back, I achieved tank-waste consolidation, got up, and started working myself. Everyone was <i>alarmingly</i> quiet. The only time that I had ever seen Misfire be quiet that long before, he’d had headphones on, was plugged into his laptop, and was trolling the Big Conversation.</p><p>“My Lady Voice,” Krok finally said over the din of hammering metal into shape and welding it into place, “you really are completely outside the bounds of rationality. You know, you almost got us all killed. If Spinister hadn’t shot the floor out from under them—”</p><p>“I’m still learning?” I looked over at him and tried to smile. “I tried to con him but I failed and then I defaulted to old-school Decepticon radical honesty and righteous anger.”</p><p>Krok gingerly patted my shoulder. “You were triggered,” he said. “So was Grimlock. It was obvious to anyone with functioning optics.”</p><p>“I’m not sure I know what that means,” I said, “so probably not?” I finished hammering a plate and started welding it down. “I suppose I could have tried to convince them that Rodimus and Ultra Magnus sent me out here as a special agent instead of telling them I was one of the faction’s sovereigns. There are people I would have tried that with.”</p><p>“<i>Really, Trophy?</i>” Crankcase laughed. “I kinda liked your direct and forthright approach. It was stupid <i>as frag</i>, but at least you had style.”</p><p>“Don’t talk to her like that,” Fulcrum grumbled.</p><p>“I’m all grown up and a big girl now,” I said to both of them in a warning tone. “Whatever you were all fighting about, it’s over. Right, Krok?”</p><p>Krok shrugged. “I hope so. Exactly how would you have pulled that off?”</p><p>“On those two? Not at all,” I said. “But I have this big gold medal in my subspace that looks like Rodimus Prime’s face on a star. It’s called a Rodimus Star. He gives them out on the LL when he’s pleased with you. Most people outside the LL haven’t seen them.”</p><p>I finished the weld on the other side. “Anyhow, he gave it to me for ‘getting over my social anxiety’.”</p><p>Krok gave me a meaningful look. “Checks out,” he said under his vents.</p><p>I raised a brow ridge at him and went on: “I put a primer and some nice paint on the back of my Roddy-Star and used an engraving pen to inscribe it. It said: ‘<i>The bearer of this warrant is acting on behalf of the Thirteen Primes and the Knights of Cybertron in the service of the Cybertronian people; please extend him every assistance</i>.’”</p><p>Krok chuckled. “I read that book.”</p><p>“He’s right, you’re nuts,” Misfire said from his corner, and grinned at me. Krok made a face at Misfire. That was one of the words that Krok didn’t like, and I wasn’t sure why.</p><p>I grinned at Misfire. “Well, I never disputed that, actually. If any of us were sane, there’d have been something wrong with us all along.”</p><p>“Why ‘him’?” Fulcrum asked, and started hammering out a new patch.</p><p>“Around thirty percent of the time, it’s the truth.” I shrugged. “The rest of the time, it’s still the Neocybex default pronoun for sapient moral agents.”</p><p>“So, you’re one of those that think Rodimus is the true Prime?” Crankcase asked, raising an eyebrow.</p><p>I took a moment off from the gossip to test my weld, but it was holding fine. “I don’t think there is such a thing as a ‘true Prime’,” I said, “because I think it’s all scrapwaste. But if there were, do you think he would act like Optimus does?”</p><p>“Actually yeah,” said Crankcase. “The Primes were all afthelms.”</p><p>“Solus wasn’t so bad,” I said with a shrug.</p><p>I pulled out my little engraver’s pen and inscribed the piece of metal I’d sealed my breach with: <i>Ravage Stanixa made this, with love to her Knights, the ScAvengers. There is no peace without justice; rise up and transform the world.</i></p><p>We worked. The silence was a little more companionable. I wanted to ask what the frag happened, but not until we were all safe aboard the W.A.P. and preferably out of the system. After we had an intact hull, we all went inside, and Misfire got to dismantling Lockdown. I would’ve preferred not to watch, but as the Voice of Destron, nothing my people had to do could be beneath me…so I helped.</p><p>We should’ve taken off and spaced whatever was left of him when we were done, but this was a very familiar routine for the rest of them and they were confident it wouldn’t take too long. When Misfire and I went out to get rid of the parts of Lockdown that even Spinister didn’t think he could use, Fortress Maximus came over the hill on the back of an equiform. “Stripping the bodies,” he said. “Classic Decepticon move.”</p><p>“Where’s your sidekick?” I shot back at him.</p><p>“Red Alert’s cataloguing everything we found in the laboratory and packing the Roboids back up so we can take them to Cerebros,” said Fortress Maximus. “I’m here to get the lot of you, starting with you, ‘Queen Destronia’.”</p><p>“I don’t fraggin’ think so, mate,” said Misfire, stepping between me and him.</p><p>“Yeah nope,” said Fulcrum, and jumped down out of the ship between Fortress Maximus and <i>both of us</i>. Misfire picked me up and set me down on his shoulders, presumably so I could look the slagger in the optics while I told him off.</p><p>“If you so much as <i>touch</i> her, that whole place is going to go up in a flash. You might be able to see it from fraggin’ Cybertron. All those innocent Roboids…” Fulcrum shook his head sadly, tossing a training clicker from hand to hand. Any beastformer who’d ever undergone programming at a postnatal centre would have recognised it, which meant that Fortress Maximus would have no idea what it was. “She mined the whole place for me while Demus and us were talking, before she came in to shut you two down and tell you where to stick your spikes.”</p><p>“But half of them are Decepticons,” Fortress Maximus said, scowling.</p><p>“Every mech for himself,” Fulcrum said with a shrug, even as he very obviously was putting himself between trouble and me and his friend.</p><p>Fortress Maximus gave me the ‘so disappointed’ look. I itched to tell him that Rang has 8000 levels in that look and compared to that, his was the real disappointment. “What about you, <i>Your Majesty</i>?”</p><p>I looked him straight in the optic and laughed again, bitterly. “Unless you can give me an absolute guarantee that they can and will be returned to full functioning, without any lingering slave coding, <i>even if they’re Decepticons</i>, blowing them up might actually be the right thing to do.”</p><p>He stared at me in genuine shock. It will never cease to amaze me how stupid some people become when they don’t know how much <i>privilege</i> they have. “You really can’t see this from my perspective at all, can you? You’ve always been big, and bipedal, with pretty, regular features that don’t remind anyone of a deadly Predacon or a cute little mechanimal.”</p><p>Fortress Maximus commed Red Alert, and they conferred for a moment, and then I heard Red Alert reading Fulcrum’s <i>forged Autopedia bio</i> back to him. Demolitions expert. Commendation for bravery. I set a reminder for later that night to go look up what they’d written about me, and resolutely schooled my face so I didn’t look like I was about to start laughing again.</p><p>Fortress Maximus lunged toward Fulcrum. He tossed me the clicker. I guess it looked enough like a detonator. “Don’t even,” I said sharply. “I’ll do it and I think you know that.”</p><p>Fortress Maximus gave me a look of absolute loathing.</p><p>“Backatcha, big guy,” I said, and then we were all startled. The green cougaraider with the Autobot badge slipped down the boarding ramp, made a figure-eight around Misfire’s legs, and dropped a datapad on the ground at Fortress Maximus’ feet.</p><p>Fortress Maximus took it and tried to grab her, as well. She leapt away, skittered back up the ramp, crawled up Misfire’s back, and then crawled up mine, where she settled herself, purring.</p><p>I felt very worried and slightly uncomfortable. She clearly wasn’t all there yet. But if she had this much volition this quickly after whatever Spin had done to her on the fly, that had to be a good sign, right?</p><p>“Everyone back in the ship!” Krok bellowed through the outside speakers; the amplification made it feel like my ears were going to start bleeding just from the pain. Fortress Maximus jumped back involuntarily as the boarding ramp began to lift and retract and the ship turned around.</p><p>As we gathered around the viewscreen inside, Krok continued: “It’s very simple, Fortress Maximus,” he said. “You leave here all by yourself, and we take off, and in three breems, you get the rest of Spinister’s instructions for reactivating the rest of them narrowcast to that datapad. Or you don’t, and maybe you actually shoot more holes in my ship. Then Ravage and Fulcrum blow everyone up over there with Fulcrum’s new toy, because you obviously don’t care what happens to any of those people anyway so they might as well. Which is it gonna be?”</p><p>“You also have to promise not to put any of the Decepticons you find over there in jail!” Spinister blurted out cheerfully.</p><p>“Or else what?” Fortress Maximus snapped.</p><p>“Or else you’ll find out what I can do with the <i>briefcase</i> I stole,” I shouted. “Ask Ultra Magnus about it and then take a long hard look at yourself in the mirror, you self-righteous piece of tinshear!”</p><p>Apparently Ultra Magnus had told him about the briefcases, because his entire face went blank and I thought he might just short-circuit in front of us all, before he turned on his heel and stalked off in the direction of the scrapyards.</p><p>Krok switched off the viewscreen and gave me a long, searching look. “Did you really steal a ‘briefcase’?” he asked me quietly.</p><p>“I did,” I said. “Do you know what it is?” I was pretty sure he didn’t.</p><p>“No,” said Krok. “Do I <i>want</i> to know what it is?” He looked like he was pretty sure he didn’t, either.</p><p>“No,” I told him firmly. “All you need to know is that it isn’t on this ship. It doesn’t even <i>work</i> for my spark-type. I stole it for Megatron. Who will tell Ultra Magnus that I was bluffing. And I assure you…Ultra Magnus will believe him.” I grinned. “Particularly if he smiles just so and looks up at him out of those big red optics of his.”</p><p>“…you know…that actually almost makes <i>sense</i>. I could see it.” Krok snorted, and Misfire cracked up.</p><p>“I don’t <i>want</i> to see it,” I said, “so I try not to think about it. Pardon me if I’d rather <i>not</i> be one degree away from the Ultra Magnus on the proverbial frag chain.”</p><p>Pretty much all of them cracked up after that. Then Krok shook his head at me, pretending to be scandalised. “Wait. You left something like whatever a ‘briefcase’ is with the <i>Autobots</i>, Ravage?”</p><p>“Nope,” I replied. “I left it with my amica endura, who has temporarily deluded himself into believing that he’s an Autobot. He said he’d take care of it. Megatron knows why I gave it to him and what I intend him to do with it. Either he’ll do it and save himself when the time comes, or he’ll throw it into a sun somewhere. I hope it’s the former.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. you can fight the sleep, but not the dream</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Were they actually in cahoots together now?</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"Well, there's a small boat made of china<br/>It's going nowhere on the mantelpiece<br/>Well, do I lie like a loungeroom lizard<br/>Or do I sing like a bird released?"</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZ3Ck43m_ZY">Crowded House</a>, "Weather With You"</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Hey Swerve, you readin’ The Big Conversation again?” Riptide rolled his optics. “Don’t even try to convince me I don’t know who got you a login. You really need to get over your crush on Soundwave’s whatever-she-or-he-is.”</p><p>Swerve grinned to himself. He wasn’t even tempted to give Riptide some well-deserved scrap over talking like that about Rav, because Riptide was totally, utterly, completely, 100% wrong about the identity of the person who’d got him that login, not that he would have ever admitted that to Riptide. Who objectively had a louder, bigger, and stupider mouth than Swerve did himself.</p><p>Swerve was, however, <i>absolutely</i> reading The Big Conversation, and at the moment, he was cracking up over the Necrobot Debate topic. Misfire really did care <i>a whole lot</i> about that issue. It was…kind of adorable, actually.</p><p>Swerve had tried multiple times to get a message through to either Ravage or Misfire, but they weren’t receiving (and honestly, he was a little bit worried himself), even though he really badly wanted to tell them how touched he was that they had been worried enough to comm Megatron. And he’d tried again, after learning where they were going to go next, because he’d been so excited about how excited Misfire would get when he heard about that.</p><p>But now…</p><p>Now, maybe Swerve was beginning to think that it would be even better to <i>surprise</i> his cool new Decepticon friend. In fact, he was about to become Misfire’s white knight, in a manner of speaking, because he was going to get a selfie with the Necrobot if it was the last thing he did.</p><p>And it wouldn’t be. Because he was not going to die, not anymore. He was going to the <i>Necroworld</i>. It was going to be <i>awesome</i>. And the only sad thing about it would be that he wouldn’t be able to see the look on Misfire’s face when he sent him the pictures.</p><p>He’d considered making it a double surprise by simply posting them to the forum, but then he’d decided against it. He had an Autobot badge after all, and he didn’t want to lose his login.</p><p>The Big Conversation was the best place to roll like a troll in the entire galactic infoweb. Autobuddies.org was a great site to hang out, but you had to be chill there, and anything they didn’t like would get deleted pretty fast, like that poem that had strongly implied that Ravage and Soundwave and Megatron had had a four-way with Optimus Prime before he was Optimus Prime. No matter what the wanker who’d posted it thought, he knew that couldn’t have been one of Ravage’s, because she absolutely hated Optimus Prime.</p><p>Anyhow. This was going to be epic.</p><p>How exactly was Misfire so cute, anyway?</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~*~*~*~</p>
</div>Megatron looked down at the so-called ‘Necroworld’ from space, frowning, because he’d almost imagined the sound of four soft pedes padding into the observation deck, but there had been no smooth dark weight to settle at his side…and he <i>missed</i> her.<p>“You don’t think this is a waste of time?” Rodimus’ voice sounded slightly sceptical.</p><p>“No,” said Megatron. If Ravage had been there, he’d have taken her paw in his hand and spoken more freely. He would have told her he was all <i>for</i> wasting time. That he knew he would probably die at the end of the journey, and somewhere along the way, he’d found himself wanting to <i>live</i>.</p><p>“That’s not what I expected you to say.”</p><p>“I don’t always do what people expect me to do,” said Megatron. “You might have noticed that.”</p><p>Rodimus laughed very quietly. “Ultra Magnus said to bring you by his office if I found you here. He’s our SIC, but technically…”</p><p>“He’s also my parole officer.” Megatron laughed wryly.</p><p>They walked together to Magnus’ office, closer together than they’d have been even a tenday ago. “You miss her.”</p><p>“You have no idea,” said Megatron. Maybe he was more selfish even than he had imagined. It wasn’t fair to Ravage, not at all, that now that she was gone, he wanted to live more than ever. Not because he didn’t want her around. But because he couldn’t bring himself to imagine dying alone, without even being able to say goodbye to her. ‘I can’t stay here just to watch you die’ had been one of her hardest limits, second only to ‘my spark is for Soundwave, and Soundwave alone.’</p><p> She was the only friend he still had left from those days, and even though he’d willingly given the sexual side of their friendship up, she was the only person left in his life who remembered him as he was. Who knew the entire trajectory of his brilliant success and his savage failure.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~*~*~*~</p>
</div>“I actually did tell you about my conjunx, Cosmos.” Soundwave laid back on the couch in his quarters, petting Laserbeak idly. “I told you she was coming home to me.”<p>Cosmos frowned and drank his cube of high-grade, slowly, sip by sip. “You mean…<i>Ravage</i>?”  To be fair…that was the only person in Soundwave’s life that he talked about much at all, and most of the conversation had been about how much he missed…her? Him? Them? It’s not always clear. He probably ought to have noticed that.</p><p>“Who else would he mean?” Laserbeak sputtered in a flurry of high-pitched bird noises that hurt Cosmos’ ears. “They haven’t officially declared themselves, but they fulfilled the requirements at least four million years ago, before the war ever started. I remember when Ravage brought him home. He was a mess.” She bunted Soundwave’s head. “Still is, but he’s functional now.”</p><p>Soundwave snorted softly. “We were collectively a huge mess,” he said, but he was smiling; he’d taken his mask off.</p><p>Cosmos sighed. Soundwave had a very pretty face. It was also irritating that all the Decepticons on the Station seemed to know so much about everyone else. Some of them had never met Soundwave before they came here—they regarded him as a hero, and a sort of celebrity—but they sure did all know his business. They all read The Big Conversation and a bunch of other sites and periodicals that were absolutely incomprehensible. Howlback and Clobber had been doing quizzes from <i>Venus</i> (“the magazine for Deceptifemmes!”) the other day and giggling like they were still in mentorship, or whatever the equivalent stage in their lives had been.</p><p>“Hasn’t Ravage been living on the <i>Lost Light</i> with Megatron?”</p><p>“Sent him there,” Soundwave grumbled. “Big mistake. Told her not to forgive me too quickly.”</p><p>“Told…her? Not to forgive…<i>you</i>? For sending…him…there?”</p><p>Soundwave gave him an irritated look, probably because he knew what Cosmos was thinking, which was that that was probably exactly the reverse of how that conversation ought to go. And also that Cosmos was legitimately confused when Ravage’s pronouns changed between sentences in a conversation.</p><p>“She was a he when I sent him,” Soundwave replied. “She’s a she right now. Tomorrow: who knows?”</p><p>“How do you <i>know</i> what she is right now?” Cosmos asked, trying not even to think about all the questions he had about this, lest Soundwave pick up how much he was judging Ravage. He wasn’t judging Ravage about the pronouns—he could’ve cared less about that—but the whole thing about Ravage living with Megatron for however long it had been since the <i>Lost Light</i> took off seemed a little bit shady.</p><p>“Cosmos. I <i>am</i> truly sorry. I only ever meant to help you,” Soundwave said. “But Ravage is the one fixed point at the centre of my moral, emotional and experiential universe. She helped me design the shell that holds me together, and she built the first layer with her own paws.”</p><p>“He means they’ve been merging their sparks for over four million years,” said Laserbeak, with a soft expression that probably meant she felt sorry for him. “This isn’t even close to being the longest they’ve been separated. It’s just the longest time they’ve <i>voluntarily</i> been kept apart. I think about fifty percent of their innermost energon came from the other, when they were wounded.”</p><p>She flew across the room and perched on the chair next to his shoulder. “If it’s any comfort,” she said, very gently, “the only reason he didn’t tell you that is that he thinks it’s written all over his face.”</p><p>Cosmos pulled away before she could bunt her head into his face. “It probably is. But he’s almost always wearing a mask.”</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~*~*~*~</p>
</div>Ultra Magnus was very troubled indeed. He didn’t waste time. As soon as the door closed, he spoke his mind. “Megatron…does Ravage have a <i>briefcase</i>?”<p>“Absolutely not!” Megatron said, with a soft laugh. “Ravage has a lanthanum-positive spark; she couldn’t use it even if she had a quantum drive at her disposal. Which she doesn’t. Why would she…?”</p><p>“The Scavengers could help her sell it, for a cut,” Ultra Magnus pointed out, with a half-hearted twinge of uncertain relief. Ravage was eccentric and often threatening, but she had also nearly been erased from existence in the medbay as a result of Brainstorm’s folly. It seemed likely that she would remember that.</p><p>As Rodimus doubtless had noted. “She’s not an idiot!” he sputtered. “Where is this even <i>coming</i> from, Mags?”</p><p>“Don’t call me that.” Ultra Magnus made a face, then glanced away. “She threatened Fortress Maximus with it.”</p><p>Megatron burst out laughing, and said, “Of course she did,” just as Rodimus blurted out an indignant “<i>What?</i>” followed by an equally indignant “<i>Why?</i>?”</p><p>Megatron grinned at Rodimus. “I concur. Those are some very good questions. Do you know anything more about this than that?” Were they actually...<i>in cahoots</i> together now?</p><p>Ultra Magnus sat down as if he’d been dropped. He had been told the whole story, albeit from Fortress Maximus’ point of view, which he knew very well not to be even remotely impartial. If he was lucky he’d stop having recharge hallucinations about it before the end of the tenday; he couldn’t imagine what Ravage must have been going through, and he really wished he could have brought himself to contact her and tell her so.</p><p>He had never quite got over the notion that she was judging him, no more and no less than he had judged her, and he wasn’t sure what that said about either of them. She was an anarchist, but he’d finally had to acknowledge she meant well. Even when she wrote essays that strongly implied it was incumbent upon anyone who believed in her cause to make every effort to prevent Megatron’s execution—not because Megatron hadn’t done anything wrong, but because <i>it was immoral to employ an executioner</i>.</p><p>“Well…he let her <i>go</i>. And he also let the Scavengers go.” Ultra Magnus suspected that this had been the right thing to do, and that he wouldn’t have been nearly so insistent on arresting everyone. He wasn’t sure if that made him a better person, or a worse one, than he’d been before.</p><p>“Of course,” said Megatron. “If my amica endura was on her way to an Autobot prison—or to a prison run by Starscream’s government—I’m sure you’d try to cushion the blow more than this.” He ex-vented. “Starscream tried to murder her on several occasions.”</p><p>Ultra Magnus did not—very much did <i>not</i>—want to think about why Starscream might have done that. Fortress Maximus had told him some other things that Ravage had said, things that had made him feel deeply angry and deeply ashamed at the same time, over something he had had nothing whatsoever to do with. “No, Megatron, this is not about anything that happened to her. She and her friends discovered an atrocity. Together with Fortress Maximus—but not intentionally so—they also ended it, and then he tried to take them in, and Ravage…well, Ravage apparently conned him. Are you really sure you want to hear this before you recharge?”</p><p>Megatron put his hand, tentatively, on Magnus’ arm. On the armour, anyway.</p><p>Within the armour, where nobody else could feel it, Minimus Ambus <i>shivered</i>, and looked up into those dark red eyes. It would have been so easy to reach for Megatron’s hand, but he couldn’t do it. That was <i>Megatron</i>.</p><p>Why had Ravage left him? Why had they decided to call themselves amicae? Why would she go back to someone who’d kept her in bondage for millions of years? Was she <i>insane</i>?</p><p>It didn’t matter. He would be an idiot to let himself feel whatever it was he was very much, not even a little bit, not feeling <i>at all</i>, only to end up grieving the rest of his life over someone who objectively didn’t even deserve to be grieved.</p><p>But he still remembered what Ravage had said when he’d stiffly bid her farewell, in a low subvocal that nobody else had heard and he had pretended not to hear, either: <i>He likes you, you know. You’re his <b>type</b>. Same as me, only not in love with his <b>other</b> best friend.</i></p><p>Or had he imagined that?</p><p>He probably <i>had</i> imagined that. Soundwave and Megatron had been best friends once, but that definitely wasn’t the case anymore.</p><p>He just really did not like thinking about how Ravage had found the body of that other Minimus Ambus. Had seen it. Had <i>smelled</i> it. And never said anything, not even a word.</p><p>“You really can tell me,” said Megatron quietly.</p><p>Minimus found that his voice wasn’t working. If he told Rodimus and Megatron about what Fortress Maximus had found, and so soon after having so many new questions come up about what had happened to his brother…what would happen if he broke down?</p><p>What would <i>Rodimus</i> do if he guessed the truth?</p><p>Did Megatron know? Had Ravage told him?</p><p>Ravage had once been a much less talkative person, given to skulking, but Ravage <i>noticed</i> everything. He had no doubt that Ravage knew.</p><p>He had no idea if Megatron did. He didn’t want to find out.</p><p>Megatron ex-vented, heavily, and looked over at the co-captain. “Rodimus,” he said gently. “I’m sure there are preparations that need to be made—”</p><p>Rodimus vented air through his dentae, and then his eyes lit up with mischief. Minimus couldn’t imagine what he was thinking, but he didn’t like it even a little bit, especially when he gave Megatron an actual <i>wink</i>, and Megatron actually <i>growled</i> a little.</p><p>But Rodimus departed with alacrity, if not with grace, and left him sitting there, with Megatron. Alone.</p><p>“Tell me,” said Megatron quietly. “Joy shared is doubled; pain shared is halved. Or something like that; I didn’t write that one.”</p><p>Minimus smiled, almost fondly. “You’re never that trite,” he said, and it felt like his spark was shivering. “Not you.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. happy birthday to the war</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Take my body and my mind; my heart is far behind.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"..days of wonder spent by a rainbow made of stars<br/>under seven different shades of grey<br/>spreading out across the arc<br/>standing by the wall, out there killing time<br/>now this may not leave a mark on me<br/>but I sure as hell was there..."</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYQITomKHp4">The Wallflowers</a>, "Days of Wonder"</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was still too quiet on board <i>The Weak Anthropic Principle</i>.</p><p>I didn’t like it.</p><p>Misfire and Fulcrum were at odds with Crankcase, and to a lesser degree with Spinister. Krok didn’t seem to know what to do about that, and I didn’t either. For a little while I’d felt high on my righteousness and my anger, but now I was just sad. The silences between my friends left me with a sharp reminder of the limits of my power. I’d written essays that had apparently riled people up on Cybertron, but I couldn’t do anything to help my friends get along again.</p><p>The little green cougaraider kept close to me. I’d thought she’d want to be close to Spin, because he was fixing her, but at this stage in her restoration, she wasn’t capable of understanding the difference between hurts that were meant to harm her and hurts that were meant to restore her. Sadly but fortunately, after where she'd been, she didn’t look up at me with betrayal when Spin came to get her; she didn't assume that I or anyone else could protect her. She just snuggled against me when she returned and purred to soothe herself. I’m normally loath to pet another beastformer, but she sought it out, pushing her head into my paws, so I did, and she settled.</p><p>Grimlock watched us. It was as always difficult to know how much he understood, but I knew what he remembered, because I’d been there too.</p><p>In short…I was coming down from the high of We Got Away With It, and We Fixed It, and falling down into the dumps of I Could’ve Got All of Us Murdered, and Will This Cat Who Looks Just Like I Did Once Ever Be Herself Again.</p><p>Krok would give me sympathetic glances from time to time. I knew he knew his old unit was really gone. I didn’t need to make him admit it. I just sat on the couch and petted my new little friend.</p><p>“You should give her a name,” said Krok.</p><p>I looked up at him and shrugged. “She already has one. We just don’t know what it is. I don’t even know why I think she’s a she. It’s a placeholder, really. She could tell me tomorrow that she’s a he and his name is <i>Devourer</i>.”</p><p>“I don’t think Autobots have names like that,” Crankcase said, laughing.</p><p>Krok shrugged back at me. “I changed my name. I’m not the same person I was. Even if she wakes up and remembers everything she ever knew, she won’t be the same person, either.”</p><p>I glanced at Crankcase. “Yeah. Krok’s right. I know Demus was one of us. But she might not be an Autobot when she comes out of this, either. Because we’re not.”</p><p>Grimlock made a grumbling noise, even though he was in mech mode. I wasn’t sure if he was protesting that he was still an Autobot, or fervently denying it.</p><p>I looked down at her finish. Viridian green, with black struts in her legs, and for some odd reason, red front paws. “I think I might call you Viridian,” I told her.</p><p>She chirped and trilled at me. They were noises I made when I liked things.</p><p>“That suit you, Viridian?”</p><p>Viridian trilled again and rested her head on my knee; I petted her gently, and she purred.</p><p>“Happy Mother’s Day,” Spinister said from the galley, drinking milky-white Sluushii coolant right out of the carton. I was never going to drink that again.</p><p>“I’ve been Soundwaved, haven’t I?”</p><p>“Not yet you haven’t,” Misfire said, laughing, and Crankcase cracked up, but Fulcrum elbowed him.</p><p>“Show some respect, pinhead.”</p><p>Krok looked down at me, fondly. “Looks like it, Ravi.”</p><p>I looked up at him, smiling in spite of myself. I could get to like her head on my knee. “Thank you for <i>not</i> calling me Lady. Or Lord, for that matter.”</p><p>Misfire cracked open a cube and poured it into a bowl. When he brought it over to set it in front of Viridian, I was relieved to see that at least it <i>looked</i> clean. It apparently tasted just fine, because she got up and lapped it right up.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Crankcase finally said, and everyone except Viridian, myself included, <i>stared</i> at him. The only sound in the room was Viridian’s purring. Grimlock, who had been half-asleep, even stopped snoring. Nobody wanted to miss whatever was going to follow that.</p><p>Crankcase fidgeted, uncomfortable. Finally, he continued. “I was wrong.”</p><p>Fulcrum’s jaw dropped. Viridian reached out with one paw in Cranky’s general direction, looking rather concerned. She still had all her emotions, even if her processing power wasn’t what it once was, and apparently she had some empathy, because she jumped down off the couch and nosed at him.</p><p>Crankcase looked at her like he was sincerely afraid she might bite him, but after he unfroze, he leaned over and patted her head. “Go back to your momma,” he whispered.</p><p>I gestured to her, and forcibly stopped myself from saying ‘ps ps’ like she was an actual cybercat, because she was acting like one, but it wasn’t her fault in any way, shape or form. She jumped back up on the couch and into my lap this time. I am still substantially smaller than most mecha are, and she didn’t quite fit. I wondered if sitting in Soundwave’s lap was going to be that awkward now for me. She looked up at me sceptically. I knew what I was supposed to do, so why wasn’t I doing it?</p><p>I sighed, and went back to petting her. I actually do like being petted. Just not by strangers. And mostly only by Soundwave, unless the servos stay on my shoulders and don’t stray lower.</p><p>“I was wrong about Grimlock,” said Crankcase, hanging his head. Grimlock sat up straight and looked right at him. This had the potential to be interesting.</p><p>“<i>You <b>were</b></i>,” Misfire said in vehement agreement. “You gonna stop being a bludger?”</p><p>“No,” said Crankcase, predictably. “But Grimlock belongs with us.” Then he chuckled. “And Trophy belongs with Soundwave, but for now, she’s gotta settle with us.”</p><p>“I do look forward to sharing my berth with only <i>one</i> mech twice my size,” I allowed, moving the energon bowl back into Viridian’s reach.</p><p>“I bet he even changes the sheets!” said Spinister cheerfully. “I was wrong too.”</p><p>Misfire ex-vented, and immediately seemed shorter, because the ramrod had flowed down out of his spine and he had relaxed right into his usual talking position. “Thanks mates.”</p><p>“From now on,” said Krok, “we <i>don’t</i> discuss selling people out. Ever again. And we also don’t forget that we’re scavengers, when we need to be.” He raised his fist in the air.</p><p>“Sca<i>vengers</i>,” Misfire sniped.</p><p>“So say we all,” I said, “and all will be one.”</p><p>“So we have said,” Krok replied. “We will not be deceived.”</p><p>I allowed myself to flop over on the couch, half into Misfire’s lap. He began to skritch my ears, exactly like I was doing for Viridian.</p><p>Oh, the indignity. Not that I minded.</p><p>“So if he actually paid us for Grimlock, over and above the scrap,” Fulcrum asked, “what would you even have done with the money?”</p><p>Krok thought for a moment, but it looked more like he was struggling to find the right words than that he didn’t know what to say. “I want to start a clinic for people like us. Fragged up by the millions of years of unending war. There’s…well, there’s got to be something we can do for ourselves and each other without sticking needles into our heads. I realised…I’m a lot saner than I used to be, and it’s because of all of you.” He glanced at me. “Even Grimlock. And Ravage. And possibly even Viridian. She’s determined. I like that.”</p><p>“Fine,” I murmured drowsily. “Absolutely no selling people. But a clinic? Soundwave and I would be willing to help fund that.”</p><p>“I got that impression,” Krok said dryly, watching my daughter sneak up closer into my arms and nose my face.</p><p>“We gonna become a bunch of do-gooders?” Crankcase asked, looking more amused than offended by the notion.</p><p>“Yep,” said Misfire. He turned to Grimlock. “I’m taking the locks off the outside of your door. Just don’t repay me by flushing your tanks on our stuff?”</p><p>“Thanks,” said Grimlock, in an actual full grammatical sentence. “I appreciate it.”</p><p>Misfire’s eyes widened, then he glanced back and forth between us. “You’re really getting better,” he said after a moment. “I was worried about you—about both of you, really—after being in that slaghole.”</p><p>“Sneaky cat helped,” Grimlock said quietly. “And I helped sneaky cat.”</p><p>“You sure did,” I murmured into Misfire’s neck and Viridian’s scruff. I glanced over at Krok. “Honestly,” I said. “All I did was just <i>trust</i> him.” </p><p>I didn’t mention that I hadn’t had a choice. I didn’t want to rub it in their faces that they’d left us there alone to get jumped by a bounty hunter, even though we’d all got a cut of what Lockdown had been paid for my immobilised body, and his innermost energon was powering us back to the Sol system.</p><p>Misfire picked me up—without dislodging Viridian—and carried us back to the berth.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~*~*~*~</p>
</div>I woke up in the middle of the night to a ping on my internal comm.<p>“Ravage: status report?” Somehow, he managed to say it like his spark was on the verge of shattering.</p><p>“I’m fine, my love,” I said, even as I felt his invisible arms pull me into his broad chest with gentle, but absolute force.</p><p>“Doubt it,” Soundwave murmured, and made it sound like his voice was coming through my hair, not my auditory nerve connection. “Knew you were alive. Didn’t know…didn’t know how much hurt.”</p><p>“A lot,” I admitted. “But everyone helped. Especially Grimlock. We went in there together, separate from everyone else. While the others distracted.” I wasn’t going to tell him—not now, when I wouldn’t have to, because of the distance—that they’d left me alone. They’d <i>thought</i> I’d be safe. But I was weeping silently again, and Viridian was pawing my face.</p><p>“Wave?”</p><p>“Yes, Ravi-brightspark?”</p><p>I swallowed, even though there was nothing in my mouth but oral lubricant. “No more sparing my feelings when it comes to this kind of intelligence. Yes I would have lost recharge time. Yes, I would have been livid. Yes, I would probably have tried to convince them to take me there. But I would not have <i>walked in there not knowing what I would find</i>.”</p><p>“Copied,” Soundwave said. “One more thing for you to forgive, I suppose.”</p><p>I shook my head. “I’m not angry with you. But I did kill the fuck out of Lockdown.”</p><p>“<i>Lockdown</i>?” His voice actually squeaked, somehow. “Needlenose sent Lockdown?”</p><p>“He did.” I winced. “And we’re flying on his innermost.”</p><p>“Suppose that’s a good thing.” Soundwave sounded more than a little morose about that. “I have Needlenose here. What do you want me to do with him? Do you want him to be here when you get back?”</p><p>“<i>Absolutely <b>not</b></i>,” I said, without hesitation. “I want to forget his face.”</p><p>I felt ghost-lips brush mine. “Do you care what becomes of him?”</p><p>“Get all the information you can,” I said. “After that I don’t care if you smelt him. It’s kinder than he chose for me.” I petted Viridian, thinking about what could’ve happened to her. Or to me. She pawed my wet cheek-mesh again.</p><p>“I have a daughter,” I said. “She used to be an Autobot. She’s green. Viridian.”</p><p>“Red paws and badge? Blackcat. Trust you more than databanks about gender, after Howlback and Laserbeak.”</p><p>“That’s a slave name,” I grumbled. “Might as well call me Felex-2, or Megatron D-16. I’ll use it if she ever wants me to, but right now she seems to like Viridian.”</p><p>“<i>I love you</i>,” Soundwave vented out into my mind’s ear, and I felt myself hugged again. “But I have to go. I think we finally raised Thundercracker.”</p><p>“<i>I love you</i>,” I replied, into the darkness that was suddenly empty enough to break, even though I was lying in a berth with Misfire, Grimlock...and Viridian, who tried to lick the tears off my face, even the ones that were really for her and for Slugfest and everyone else who had ever been broken in that place.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. don't leave me stranded here</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>“I want to know how it <i>ends</i>,” Megatron admitted.</p><p>Swerve looked up at him, not sure what to say…not even sure what he was talking about. “I don’t think it does,” he finally said. “And I don’t think we get to understand it all until after. So if everything goes the wrong way for you…at least you’ll have that.”</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"Years ago, I was an angry young man<br/>And I'd pretend that I was a billboard<br/>Standing tall, by the side of the road<br/>I fell in love with a beautiful highway<br/>This used to be real estate; now it's only fields and trees<br/>Where, where is the town?<br/>Now, it's nothing but flowers..."</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2twY8YQYDBE">Talking Heads</a>, "Nothing But Flowers"</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Viridian recharges fitfully. Any loss of consciousness is terrifying. She isn’t sure she will wake. But she can’t resist it for long.</p><p>In a recharge hallucination, she prowls through the warehouse of boxes, runs when she’s noticed, falls through the floor and into a tank in the laboratory below. She drags herself out of the tank, shaking the foul-smelling fluid off, and hides. The helicopter person picks her up and says a lot of things she can’t understand, and sprays something cold into her face. That scares her more than pain, and she falls back into the darkness again.</p><p>Words should make sense to her but they don’t, not even in her recharge hallucinations. Only one word is clear: <i>Viridian</i>. That isn’t the name she doesn’t remember, but at least it’s a name.</p><p>She finds herself staring at a poster on a wall. The person has the same frame that Viridian has, but she’s black and silver, like someone Viridian thinks she likes, with red optics that are comforting but ought to be scary. The poster’s edges are torn and they’re taped to the wall with discoloured old tape. The person in the poster is draped with strings of rubies. There are words on the poster but they make no more sense written down than they do spoken aloud.</p><p>Strings of rubies.</p><p>And a broken chain.</p><p>Viridian wakes, and wakes again. Sleep, defragmentation, recharge: they drag her back into their clutches when her body sinks like lead against the other cat she’s clinging to. The other cat purrs, and whispers soft words. The other cat also wears rubies.</p><p>They are lying on top of a jet-person; Viridian is between the other cat-person and a dinosaur-person. The others do not resist unconsciousness. The jet’s engines thrum. The dinosaur snores. All is at peace, except for Viridian.</p><p>Viridian jumps down and prowls. Most of the doors are ajar. All of the others are at rest. Viridian laps at the last few drops of fuel in the bowl the jet set out for her. She paws at the door of the box where the cubes are kept until it comes open. There are cartons that smell like coolant, one opened but resealed; she knocks it down off the shelf and runs a claw along the top side of the carton until it opens wide enough for her to lap up what’s left with her tongue.</p><p>The coolant feels good in her throat as it drips down into her tanks. It tastes good, too. She’s not aware that this is the first time she’s got her own fuel since before she forgot her old name. For some reason she dimly feels proud of herself, anyway.</p><p>The couch is not a recharge slab but it’s soft. The couch smells like all of the people who live here. She doesn’t hear the other cat purring, but she also doesn’t hear the dinosaur snoring. The claws of the darkness drag her back into recharge again.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~*~*~*~</p>
</div>Swerve groaned as Nightbeat transformed and attempted to ram the door of the Necrobot’s citadel, only to have it slammed in his grille. Under other circumstances he might have thought it was funny, but he had <i>plans</i> for this trip. If Nightbeat had fragged everything up by being an aft…<p>Well, he didn’t know what he’d do about that. But something. He munched on a pink rust stick, and tried not to think too hard about failing, suddenly glad he’d decided to surprise Misfire instead of promising him vindication. Then the door opened anyway, and the Necrobot dragged Nightbeat inside. Too fast, unfortunately, for Swerve to get even a blurry picture. He’d have to wait.</p><p>Chromedome and Rewind strode off together into the fields of blue flowers and statues. Swerve was disinclined to follow them, because he knew they were there to find out what had happened to Rewind’s <i>first</i> conjunx.</p><p>Megatron sat by himself, looking perhaps even more morose than he <i>usually</i> did, and what bothered Swerve the most about that was that suddenly he <i>cared</i> about that. “Don’t think about her,” Swerve said, sitting down next to him.</p><p>“And what would you suggest I think about?” Megatron asked quietly, which was neither an admission nor a denial. “It’s nice out here, don’t you think?”</p><p>“Sure,” said Swerve. “I like the flowers. I don’t understand why they’re all the same kind, though. I would’ve chosen more colours than just blue, if it had been up to me.”</p><p>Megatron laughed. “Mostly, what I was thinking about was that the journey’s almost over. Next stop, Cyberutopia.”</p><p>Swerve considered that. “You wish there were a few more stops?”</p><p>“I’m not in a hurry to get it all over with,” Megatron said with a shrug. “Would you be?”</p><p>“I’m not the right person to ask,” Swerve said after a moment. “I was willing to let it all go just a few days ago. But I’ll admit. I’m glad I didn’t.” He ex-vented. “For what it’s worth…things might not turn out how you think.”</p><p>“I want to know how it <i>ends</i>,” Megatron admitted.</p><p>Swerve looked up at him, not sure what to say…not even sure what he was talking about. “I don’t think it does,” he finally said. “And I don’t think we get to understand it all until after. So if everything goes the wrong way for you…at least you’ll have that.”</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~*~*~*~</p>
</div>Soundwave had sent most of Galvatron’s people packing. They were offered a choice; they refused it, or they didn’t, but he knew, either way, that they intended to support their chosen master. The Cobalt Sentries took their weapons and cuffed them; they were sent back to Earth, where Galvatron had bases, on one of the asteroid-mining shuttles. He didn’t want to waste space or resources on people who were going to try and destroy what he’d built, but he didn’t want to kill them.<p>Galvatron would see it as weakness, but Soundwave didn’t care. It was more important to him that people understood what Sanctuary was: a second (or third, or nth) chance for everyone. Galvatron would have thought he was weak no matter what he did; he knew that he was stronger than he’d ever been before.</p><p>But Needlenose was another matter.</p><p>Howlback followed him into the interrogation room. Clobber brought Needlenose out of his cell, cuffed him, and sat him down across the table from Soundwave.</p><p>“I would rather not do this,” Soundwave told Needlenose, and it was the truth. He didn’t like reading people’s thoughts when they didn’t want him to, even when it was necessary. He didn’t like reading the thoughts of people who hated him, either.</p><p>“What? You going to say this hurts you more than it hurts me?” Needlenose jumped, and a sharp flare of pain burst over Soundwave’s mind. Clobber had bound his cuffs to the back of the chair and she hadn’t been gentle about it.</p><p>“Actually? Yes. Take some measure of comfort from knowing that.”</p><p>Needlenose growled. “You gonna jack into me the same way you do to your felinoid berth-warmers? Didn’t know you had more than one.”</p><p>Soundwave had been about to speak when he felt Howlback’s claws rake the derma on Needlenose’s face. He couldn’t blame her, but it hurt him, too.</p><p>“Take care,” she hissed at Needlenose. “Take care how you speak of me, for I am no-one’s berth-warmer, and take care how you speak of <i>my sister</i>. I am very aware of the fate you and Galvatron had decided would suit her, and probably me as well.”</p><p>“Howlback. Desist,” Soundwave said mildly. “I am about to open.” He took off his blast mask first. Then his visor. And finally, he removed his helmet. A single sensory panel, following the midline of his skull from the nape of his neck to the crown of his head, unfurled. It was extremely distasteful for Soundwave to be this open in the presence of someone who loathed him this much. He normally only bared his head to Ravage. He’d hoped he would not have to do this again.</p><p>“I thought you said you don’t rape prisoners,” Needlenose scoffed.</p><p>“I don’t think you have any idea how unwilling I am to share any kind of interface with you,” Soundwave said quietly. “I won’t have to probe you, unless you’ve been trained far better than seems plausible.”</p><p>And Needlenose knew he hadn’t been, which meant that Soundwave knew, too. Needlenose also knew <i>that</i>, and he was close to breaking already because of it.</p><p>“Just listen to Officer Howlback’s questions.” Soundwave didn’t demand that Needlenose answer them, and that point was not lost on Needlenose, who started to think about Horri-Bull, defiantly and explicitly.</p><p>Soundwave sighed. “Would he want you to share that, with me of all people? It seems a little disrespectful of the memory of someone you loved enough to decide to betray me.”</p><p>Needlenose started to think about Ravage, and what could have happened to her.</p><p>“Ravage is safe,” Soundwave told him, breaking the train of thought. “The fact that you are trying to provoke me into breaking you just tells me there are things you know that I need to find out. I always knew you weren’t an idealist, Needlenose, but I used to think you were intelligent enough to understand why peace was to everyone’s advantage. You can make this as unpleasant as you like for both of us. You can force me to do violence to you. Or you can face your execution with enough consciousness left to enjoy your last meal. Which will it be?”</p><p>Without waiting for Needlenose to answer, Howlback began to ask questions.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~*~*~*~</p>
</div>Censere—the Necrobot—was surprisingly friendly. Megatron watched with deep amusement as Censere put his arm around Swerve and lifted him up so he could get his selfie. The flowers were very lovely, and unlike Swerve, he didn’t think they were less so for being only one colour. It was soothing that they were all the same. It was a gorgeous tribute to the lost, and he approved of it whole-heartedly.<p>After the selfie, Megatron drew Censere aside. “May I enter the Citadel? I have something I’d like to share with you privately. I know we’ll be meeting each other again soon enough, but…”</p><p>“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” said Censere. “Things don’t happen until they happen.” But he took Megatron in through the door he’d come out of with Nightbeat, anyway.</p><p>Megatron took the briefcase out of his subspace and laid it down on a table. “I think you should have this,” he said. “Even if you can’t use it—I don’t think anyone else can be trusted with this.”</p><p>Censere gave it a long, searching look. “I think I can,” he said after a moment. “You know I won’t use this to <i>change</i> the past. Not even yours.”</p><p>Megatron nodded. “That’s why I trust you with it. I <i>don’t</i> trust myself with it. I can’t use it properly, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t find someone who could.”</p><p>Censere nodded. “I’ll take good care of it,” he said. “And when the time comes—<i>whenever</i> it comes, I’ll try to take care of you. For what it’s worth, I don’t blame you for anything. We’re all murderers, and we all have our stories and reasons. There are those who will want you forgotten. I will make sure that you’re not.”</p><p>“Thank you,” said Megatron, and he meant it.</p><p>“You’re going to go look for your statue. Aren’t you?”</p><p>“You said yourself—the day of reckoning always comes.” Megatron ex-vented slowly.</p><p>Censere looked down at the briefcase, and then he put it away in a cabinet. “Do yourself a favour, and look for your old lover’s, too. And don’t go alone.”</p><p>“The person I’d want at my side isn’t here,” said Megatron quietly. “I let her go.”</p><p>“Then find someone else,” Censere replied, and led him back to the door. “Your co-captain, perhaps. He seems like a good sort.”</p><p>They re-joined the others. Megatron bowed, and followed Nightbeat to the monument of the Disappeared. It was…something…to see the look on Rewind’s face when he realised that Dominus Ambus wasn’t dead. It was also something he didn’t belong there for.</p><p>
  <i>Dominus Ambus.</i>
</p><p>He commed Ultra Magnus. “Come down here,” he said in a soft voice. “<i>Please</i>.”</p><p>“I told you that I know he’s gone. Is Rewind all right?”</p><p>Megatron made a small, exasperated noise, because he of all people should not be finding himself at a loss for words, and then finally answered the question. “Rewind is fine. But your brother is on the list of the Disappeared. His death has not been confirmed. And that’s not even why I commed you.”</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>“<i>I need you, Minimus</i>.” Megatron hated the way his voice sounded. He was not a weak person. He didn’t <i>need</i> people, because he couldn’t, because they died, because they failed, because no-one was perfect.</p><p>But he wasn’t, either.</p><p>“I’ll be right there,” Minimus Ambus said, and an hour later, they were standing together on a ridge, looking up at Megatron’s statue.</p><p>And down, down at the fields of flowers, nothing but blue, as far as their optics can see. </p><p>And when Megatron crumpled, first inside, and then with trembling knees, until he dropped into a seated position on the ground, to sob as ugly as he'd done when he'd left Terminus behind…Minimus Ambus stood beside him, one hand on his shoulder.</p>
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<a name="section0017"><h2>17. it will end again in bullets fired</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Do you hear the executioner's song?</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"When I craved I ate hearts of sharks, I know you know it--<br/>I'm a man-man-man, man-man-man eater<br/>But still you're surprised 'prised 'prised when I eat you..."</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXl870NoF4E">Neko Case</a>, "People Got A Lotta Nerve"</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <i>As posted to <a href="https://tfwiki.net/wiki/The_Big_Conversation">The Big Conversation</a> by <b>@cybercatastrophe</b>.</i>
</p><p><i>Site Administrator <b>@EmeraldWings</b> has verified that this post was actually made by <b>@cybercatastrophe</b>.</i><br/>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</p><p>When people debate the morality of execution, they normally spend a great deal of time discussing whether or not there is any crime for which death is an acceptable atonement or punishment, or the problem of ascertaining guilt, and whether or not it is preferable to execute the occasional innocent person or let the occasional guilty person go free.</p><p>One thing that you almost never hear them bring up is the question of who will be tasked with enacting the sentence. But who is the executioner?</p><p>It’s not a secret that I’m opposed to Megatron’s execution. A number of people have said things about that, and most of them are at least a little bit true, but none of them is the whole of the story.</p><p>“Well, of course @cybercatastrophe would say that! Consider their relationship! We all know what he’s been to her, and she to him!”</p><p>“Well, of course @cybercatastrophe objects to the death penalty! If he’s ever held responsible for all the things he’s done, he’ll end up just as dead as Megatron!”</p><p>“It’s very special of @cybercatastrophe to object to institutionalised killing, when she was a saboteur and an assassin, don’t you think?”</p><p>It’s true that I have loved him. It’s true that I have spilled a lot of energon. It’s true that I will still kill, if I have to, to protect myself, the innocent, and those I love.</p><p>It’s also true that I was an assassin, but I’m not one, now. And I will never be again.</p><p>The heart of Sanctuary is concordia, the recognition that we all depend on one another, that in a functioning society we have ties to others, who have ties to others still, and that love and caring can be transitive; that we should be able to give without being compelled, in the recognition that we are all one—not all one in the eyes of Primus, but truly, all one; that our society is a living thing.</p><p>It is our ideal to avoid violence whenever possible, and yet we also understand that it won’t always be possible. We are fighting for the spark of Destron, and we want to wage those battles with words and ideas, but there are still those who wear our badge who refuse to acknowledge the rights of all sapient beings to self-determination. (Perhaps you thought those were the words of Optimus Prime. Well, he stole them. He stole them from Megatron, who didn’t live up to them, but they are still his words.)</p><p>If we have to fight with swords and blasters to defend ourselves and those who must depend on us, we will. If those who do not want peace are willing to take off their badges and leave our territories, they may do so; we would rather use our resources to rebuild our society. But if they will not give us peace, we will destroy the infection that seeks to invade and take over our culture as kindly and swiftly as we are able. But we will do it in our own names, on our own behalf, to protect what we have built. And we will do it with the consciousness that the infection is the way of thinking, and the people who carry it are still people like us.</p><p>We will not be executioners.</p><p>I was an assassin. I was sent out to kill people, early and often, and for most of my life, the mechs who were sending me out to do that work were the <i>two mechs that I have loved most in this life</i>. You can’t imagine how truly fragged up that is. It took a toll on me. It took a toll on them both. It took a toll on our relationships. It made us sick, physically and emotionally. And yet…I think I was better off than some of the other trained killers. I thought, then as now, that it would be even worse to be so ordered by a stranger, and compelled by force alone, without any love and without shared ideals.</p><p>If I had been built in a time when people could choose their own work—and there has <i>never</i> been a time when everyone has had that freedom—I would have chosen to be a poet, a dancer, a teacher. And if I had been allowed to continue working to organise my community in Rodion, to find people places to live and distribute whatever energon we could acquire—I would have done that, but of course, the enforcers brought all of that down, and we found ourselves back in the Senate’s service whether we liked it or not. The caste system was not going to be brought down with dancing and poetry and fair distribution of stolen or salvaged energon, or any of the other things I didn’t hate doing when I was a young mech. There were people who had to die for that to happen.</p><p>Megatron has said that wasn’t true, but he said it in a fit of remorse, in which he could not understand that where he went wrong was in killing people who <i>didn’t</i> have their pedes on our necks.</p><p>But at least I chose to fight. So many others were dumped into battlefields almost as soon as they came online. And killing is ugly work.</p><p>Most of the jobs people think of as ‘low-caste work’ don’t have to be horrible. In a just society, where all are allowed to choose what they do with their lives, and all who work are treated with dignity, there will be people who will choose to mine energon, clean buildings, provide hospitality of all kinds, and fight to defend their society when it is endangered.</p><p>What the people who do that work hate is being mistreated, because the rest of society has decided that even though this work is essential to the functioning of society, those who do it are not worthy of being respected as persons, and will not be recognised, so that society can work them to death and pay them very little for doing work upon which the state of the world as we know it depends.</p><p>If we pay the people who do these kinds of work fairly, ensure that their working conditions are safe, allow them to refuse orders that are too degrading or dangerous, and give them the respect that is due to those who keep our society functional—the same respect that is due to medics and teachers and priests and artists—people whose temperaments are suited to this work will take it. And they should be respected. If there were no priests the world would be little different. If there were no miners, we would all starve.</p><p>These are low-caste jobs simply because the people who have all the wealth want to work those people to death in order to take what they earn from them, and to do that, they have to depersonalise them. They equate form to function so they can pretend that the objective differences in form and shape between people justify the mistreatment of those on the bottom of the pyramid.  They want the rest of us to believe that it was Primus who decided these things.</p><p>If you are going to make some jobs so unpleasant that nobody with a choice would ever want to do them, you have to have a caste system; if nobody wants to do a kind of work that is deemed essential to social functioning, someone will have to be forced to do it. And in order to abolish the caste system, we have to dismantle the idea that some work is inherently degrading to the spark.</p><p>And yet.</p><p>Some things that are called ‘work’ actually <i>are</i> inherently degrading to the spark. These things should not be called ‘work’ because nobody needs to do them, and nobody should ever have to do them.</p><p>Killing helpless mechs is not a job that anyone healthy or sane would ever actually want. Not even if it paid what the Senate once paid the Senators. Killing is dirty, ugly, soul-reaping work. To be a soldier in a time of war is hard enough, but if we love our homes, we will fight to defend them. War is a thing that nobody sane or healthy loves, but sometimes it’s the only alternative to being destroyed.</p><p>Gladiators are forced to kill for the entertainment of others. This is inherently degrading to the sparks of those who have to do it, and to those who choose to entertain themselves this way. Blood sports have no place in a civilised society; and I speak here as someone who has known and loved gladiators.</p><p>Executioners are also forced to kill for the vindication and relief of others, only they are forced to kill people who cannot resist them. It is no less a blood sport than gladiatorial combat. It is a performance of something we want to believe is justice.</p><p>At least an assassin in the service of Destron or Cybertron can tell himself or herself that the work is in the service of a cause.</p><p>An executioner will be some poor low-caste mech who has been put into a position where he has to kill people who are restrained and helpless, who haven’t done anything at all to him, because some other clean-handed mech has decided that it must be so. What do you suppose happens to the spark of a person who is given the work of killing the helpless?</p><p>My belief, as those of you who read my work already know, is that the state (insofar as there should be a state at all), should not be in the business of retributive justice—only restorative justice. So the state should not be set up in such a way that there have to be desperate, uneducated, unhappy people who are willing to come to work and kill helpless strangers just as a <i>job</i>.</p><p>I do understand that some people simply will not feel restored until they have taken the life of the person who hurt them or killed the person they love. Let them try; let them have their hearing, file their intention to kill. If the conjunx of someone I killed for the cause comes after me someday, so be it; only let them come after me, not someone whose only crime against them is loving me. I will fight back because I want to live, but I would not begrudge them the right to try.</p><p>But if a judge, reading laws from a book with clean hands, wants to sentence a mech to death for something that caused them no personal suffering, then I say, they had better be willing to kill that person themselves.</p><p>There are two things that happen when you learn to kill easily and well. One is that it stops being easy to imagine yourself living in a world where you are truly safe, and another is that it stops mattering so much. It should never stop mattering. I would rather have a murderer in my vicinity than an executioner.</p><p>If someone tells me, “yes, I killed him, because after the atrocity he did, I couldn’t stand to exist in the same world with him,” I understand it—as long as it is personal, and as long as it is an atrocity. At least with that person I’m safe, as long as I don’t draw his rage down on me.</p><p>But people who have to kill routinely, frequently coarsen. They become cruel to their families and friends. They treat themselves and others badly, because they have had to give up on believing that other life matters. </p><p>If someone who lost their amica to Megatron’s direct action tore out his spark, I would mourn him, but I would let it go.</p><p>I cannot say nothing while a bunch of nodding heads decide the fate of someone I love—or for that matter, the fate of anyone else, even my singular enemy—and order some MTO or prison guard who’s never had the chance to make a real choice in their life before to snuff him out while he is bound.</p><p>I may not be able to stop it—but if I am able to stop without restarting the war, I will, and if I am not able to stop it without restarting the war, I will forever hold my own desire for vengeance, not against the hand that dealt the blow, but against the nodding head who thought that wage slavery was an ethical way to compel one person to kill another, another who has been made helpless to resist.</p><p>Most of those who want to see people thrown into the smelter or snuffed out like candles have no idea what it would be like to do those things. You don’t know the sense of power it gives you, the false sense of power that can make you a cheerful murderer; and you don’t know the pain that this act inflicts on your spark, even if you’re already desperate and have been forced to make so many bad choices you can no longer feel that pain consciously.</p><p>You need to think about what you are asking people to do when you ask them to do the vengeance for you that you will not do. If you do not want someone dead badly enough to stand there yourself and watch the light die in their optics, you don’t have the right to ask anyone else to kill them.</p><p>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</p><p><i>Reposted to <b><span class="u">Autobuddies.org</span></b> by <b>@originalJazzman</b>:</i><br/>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<br/>
This person--and we all know who this is--is asking questions we’ll have to answer.</p><p><i>Comment by <b>@Ultra-Magnus-VERIFIED</b>:</i><br/>
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I’m not sure she cares what our answers are, although some of the people who read her essays might care.</p><p>What bothers me is that I understand why she doesn’t care, and that I know she’d be saying these things even if he weren’t her amica.</p><p><i>Comment by <b>@Latest&amp;Best-Enforcer</b>:</i><br/>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<br/>
She is a <b>pest</b> and you should have done something about her when you had the chance.</p><p><i>Comment by <b>@Ultra-Magnus-VERIFIED</b>:</i><br/>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<br/>
I understand why you’re angry with her. But she does have principles. We may find her principles difficult to understand, illogical and sometimes cruel, but we can’t truthfully say that she doesn’t have them.</p><p><i>Comment by <b>@SpectralSword</b>:</i><br/>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<br/>
You are all forgetting that we are not her (?) audience. (I haven’t spoken to her in years, but if that’s who she is now, good for her!)</p><p>She isn’t writing this for us, although she doesn't mind that we are reading it, but it's intended to be instructive to other Decepticons. This is a gloss on several of Megatron’s positions (like everything else she writes that’s not poetry). She’s also not wrong about what the job does and did to those of us who did it.</p><p>This is also a slap in Galvatron’s face, because she’s telling him, if he’s reading this, and I’m sure he is, exactly how and why her moral philosophy will not stop her from destroying him.</p><p>I'm not criticising any of you for being appalled or questioning what she’s saying. But I am reminding you that we all have our spiritual and ethical journeys, and none of the rest of you started out from where she did.</p><p>These essays are meant as a course correction to follow <i>Towards Peace</i> and <i>The Sacrifice of Violence</i>. She's also having an argument with Tarn in the comments of the original post, and better her than me. I'm not sure if I admire her for that or think that she's wasting her time.  I think I'll stick with the comfort of the ambiguous edge between uncomfortable truths on that one.</p><p><i>Comment by <b>@originalJazzman</b>:</i><br/>
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Then why does she assume that the people reading this don't understand what it's like to work in that capacity, especially for the High Command?</p><p><i>Comment by <b>@SpectralSword</b>:</i><br/>
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People on the Warworlds are reading this. The site admin who's been verifying all her posts lives on one of them. It's been four million years. We're not the only people who've lost track of our colonies.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0018"><h2>18. the last one out of the circus</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Misfire got Necrobot evidence.  Crankcase apologised.  What was the third miracle going to be?</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"I dream I never know anyone at the party and I'm always the host<br/>If dreams are like movies, then memories are films about ghosts<br/>You can never escape, you can only move south down the coast..."</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdt58T366xw">Counting Crows</a>, "Mrs Potter's Lullaby"</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first thing that woke me up was the yowling coming from outside the berth.</p><p>Viridian was lying on the couch in front of the big screen with her legs in the air, kicking at something that only existed in her recharge hallucinations. She was screaming so loud I couldn’t believe the whole ship wasn’t up. My hearing is better than that of most mechs, but not that much better.</p><p>I grabbed a mesh blanket off the floor in front of the couch and prepared to get clawed as I tossed it over her, leaned over and quickly swaddled her in it, as tight as I could, and held her close to me, purring, until she stopped moving and started making what I can best describe as emotional noises—she sounded like she was trying to talk to me, but couldn’t make the words come.</p><p>I tried as best I could to answer her tone with soothing words. I rocked her the way Soundwave rocks me when I wake up from a bad one, except that I couldn’t at the same time touch her mind soothingly. When she stilled a little more, I stroked her cheeks and ears, until she started to purr, and to knead my chest.</p><p>That’s when I realised that I was exhausted. I sank back into the couch cushions with her. “You’re gonna be a whole lot happier when you can understand what I say, I bet. And even more when you can talk, yourself,” I said. “And we are, too, but there’s time. I just wish I knew what to do for you.”</p><p>She tucked her head under my chin, as if to say I’d done <i>just fine</i>, and I dozed off with her.</p><p>The second thing that woke me up was Misfire. Even though we weren’t in his room. He was making the most astonishing whooping noise; it seemed to ricochet off every wall and corner on the ship, and it woke up Viridian; she hissed and jumped out of my arms to hide behind the couch.</p><p>I walked back into Misfire’s quarters just as a pillow bounced off him and almost hit me. I didn’t blame Grimlock, but after I had to jump out of the way of the Dynobot pillow, there was a zero percent chance of me slipping back into recharge.</p><p>“Misfire, <i>what the <b>fuck</b></i>?”</p><p>“<i>Swerve met the <b>Necrobot</b>!</i>” he squealed. (One would not think that a jet Misfire’s size could produce a squeal. And one would be wrong.) I blinked and rubbed my eyes, <i>because he did not just say that</i>.</p><p>When I finally had a little more processing power back online, I stared at him. “That is a very strange way for you to react if Swerve just had <i>another</i> near-death experience, let alone one that close! And I repeat: what the frag is wrong with you?”</p><p>“Who cares?” Fulcrum bellowed from the hallway. “Figure it out when we’re all awake, Ravage!”</p><p>“No, no, no, nothing’s wrong with him! They went to the Necrobot planet, they met the Necrobot, Swerve took pictures, and Swerve took a <i>selfie</i> with him!” Misfire’s optics were practically glowing with glee. “Wanna see?”</p><p>I pressed both palms into my face and massaged my aching forehead with the heels of them, then dropped down onto the floor, sitting down upright because I needed my hands to deal with my processor ache. “Yes,” I said, “of course I do, but give me an astrosec. This. This is <i>such</i> a <i>Lost Light</i> thing.”</p><p>Suddenly, Misfire looked almost concerned. “Did Megatron not comm you about it? Swerve said he was there. I would’ve commed you if I’d been there and I’m not even your amica.”</p><p>“…no?” I replied. “I can’t see Megatron being all that excited about anything having to do with <i>dying</i>, can you?”</p><p>“…oh,” said Misfire, and frowned as that sunk in. “But you’re his amica.”</p><p>“And I am sure he’ll tell me when he’s ready to talk,” I said—</p><p>—just as we all heard Crankcase: “What <i>wild animal</i> left coolant all over the floor last night?”</p><p>I could not <i>believe</i> he was using that kind of language, except that I really should’ve, because he was Crankcase. Viridian darted into the room and hid behind Grimlock, who was trying and failing to go back to recharge. I groaned and went out into the ‘living room’ to yell right back at him.</p><p>Sure enough, there was a torn coolant carton on the galley floor. And very, very little coolant on the floor, because she’d torn it open to drink it, not to make a huge mess and annoy Crankcase.</p><p>“Viridian, you <i>complete and utter <b>afthelm</b>!</i> And she’s not a wild animal!” I sang down onto the floor, grabbed a rag and began to clean up the infinitesimal mess. “My daughter just wanted a drink and she got it all by herself without waking anyone up, which is less rude than anyone else has been on this beautiful morning! Anyhow, there’s hardly any spill, she drank it all right up—aw, frag!”</p><p>I was a <i>terrible guardian</i>. Misfire had been the one to remember to feed her and neither of us had thought about getting her coolant. I resolved to make sure she knew where to empty her tanks before she gave somebody else a reason to yell at her. “It’s not her damn fault, Cranky. I’m actually pretty proud of her for getting the fridge open all by herself. Means she’s probably getting the use of her fore-thumbs back.”</p><p>Crankcase actually looked visibly chastened, probably only because he remembered where Viridian had come from. “Yeah…yeah, Trophy. I’m sorry,” he mumbled, as I handed him an unopened carton. </p><p>“I’d tell you to put your name on it because Spin drinks from the cartons,” I said, “but we all know how much good <i>that</i> would do.” Then I ex-vented. “Misfire got Necrobot evidence and <i>you apologised</i> to me. Wonder what the third miracle of the day’s going to be?”</p><p>I got my own coolant and energon ready, and then some for Viridian, too. I wondered if she also liked them swirled together in a fizz, but the best way to figure that out would be to let her taste mine. She was pacing uncomfortably when I saw her, so I showed her to the ‘cycler, and was relieved that she remembered how to use it.</p><p>Of course, Misfire quieted down real fast once he got his laptop out and started posting. I read over his shoulder for a while. “Don’t forget to blur out Swerve’s badge or they might put two and two together and freeze his account.”</p><p>“I’m not a <i>complete</i> idiot,” said Misfire, but he promptly opened the photo editor.</p><p>“Yes you are,” said Fulcrum with a snort. “Won’t they know the guy’s a Bot if his badge is blurred?”</p><p>“They’ll know he’s trying to be respectful of our space,” I said, “and not flaunt what he’s getting away with by being there. You know, like Megatron does? Esmeral must’ve banned him at least five times. You do know Maestro is Jazz, right?”</p><p>“Seriously?” Krok looked hurt.</p><p>“Soundwave and he co-mod the music forums.” I munched on a rust stick. “And obviously, Soundwave hasn’t had much time for that lately, so I’m fairly sure that lately it’s been mostly him and Glit.”</p><p>Glit. I sighed. I hadn’t thought about him since the last time Megatron and I had talked about that, but he’s my brother. I didn’t even know where he was, and that was embarrassing.</p><p>Krok looked even more hurt. “Not <i>that</i> stupid rumour again,” I grumbled, then rolled my eyes. “Krok, they’re not even <i>friends</i>. Jazz and Soundwave just like to trade music.”</p><p>“Megatron needs to learn to fake his IP,” Misfire grumbled, shaking his head.</p><p>“I don’t think it matters if you hide your IP if you name your account @Unit-D-16,” Cranky said with a snort.</p><p>“His last alt was @SorryThatTarnKissedYourConsort,” I said. “I’ve never seen her ban anyone that fast!”</p><p>“<i>Rude</i>,” said Fulcrum.</p><p>“How would Tarn even <i>do</i> that?” Crankcase wondered aloud, just to make sure we stayed classy.</p><p>“Also not true,” said Krok.</p><p>“He doesn’t have <i>lips</i>,” Crankcase continued obliviously.</p><p>“Just like the Jazz thing?” said me.</p><p>Krok shrugged. “It’s still a spiker that he cross-posts your stuff to Autobuddies. I should’ve known Jazz was on the BC. Fortress Maximus is still hacked off you got away, FYI.”</p><p>I burst out laughing, much to Viridian’s annoyance. “You have an <i>Autobuddies</i> account?”</p><p>Krok shrugged again. “Some of the technical stuff they post’s pretty interesting.”</p><p>Viridian padded over to Krok and pawed at his laptop. Krok looked down at her. “You have an Autobot badge,” he said thoughtfully. “Can you…can you type?”</p><p>“Should be able to,” said Spinister, who was playing in a corner with a couple of pieces of scrap metal. I would’ve sworn he thought he was making them kiss. Or frag. Or something.</p><p>Viridian raised her red forepaws and stretched out the joints, separating the dewjoint from the rest of her paw, which is how we do opposable thumbs as quadrupeds, and then partially retracted her claws. Krok gave her the laptop. I moved over to read over their shoulders, because I already knew what Misfire was going to post—and keep posting, probably all day.</p><p>Viridian signed Krok out of his account and signed in as “Velvet Green”, but then she stared at the webpage in deep confusion.</p><p>“Can you still read, little girl?” Krok asked gently. “Apparently you can still type.” She just looked up at him and let out a plaintive miaow.</p><p>If only Soundwave were there, I thought. To tell us what was going on in her mind. I’m no medic, but even I know that brain injuries are weird and do weird things to the way you process language. I stroked her ears. “You can do it,” I told her, and then looked over across the room. “Little help, Spin?”</p><p>Viridian gave me a dirty look as he came over.</p><p>“I know some of the things he does hurt,” I told her, “because he helps me, too. But unlike at the other place, he’s trying to help you get better.” She seemed to understand me a little more than she had last night, because she made a ‘something smells bad’ face and ex-vented out of only one side of her mouth.</p><p>“I tried to fix her vox but I don’t have the right parts. Even if you were dead I couldn’t use yours, you’re too big.” From anyone else I would have been furious at that comment but Spinister has no social sense whatsoever.</p><p>Spinister pulled a bunch of odd wires and pieces of metal and plastic out of his subspaces, then switched a penlight in one of his digits on, took her muzzle in one hand, and shone that light back into her eyes. I winced in sympathy. If there is anything all cougaraiders justifiably hate, it’s having light projected directly into our optics. But even as she tried to hiss through his hand, I could hear the lenses in his own eyes switching as he tilted his head from side to side, and finally switched off the light.</p><p>Viridian growled very softly in the back of her throat. “Don’t,” I told her. “No biteys.”</p><p>“A guardian is appropriate,” Spinister said, a complete non sequitur as per usual. “This is a very young being. No protoform bands but still.” While he spoke he was twisting his wires together. I was only slightly alarmed that he used his dentae to cut them.</p><p>After a moment he placed one of the braided wires at each of her temples and knitted them together. “If she hasn’t voided waste fluid yet, she might.”</p><p>Viridian growled again. I didn’t blame her but I hoped she was just expressing her opinion and not making an actual threat display. “She has,” I said. “Pretty recently.”</p><p> Krok raised an eyebrow. “Seriously, Krok? She’s a good girl. I had to show her where to go.”</p><p>“Port,” said Spinister, and held out his hand. I realised in shock he was talking to me.</p><p>“I’m not going to ‘face her!” I sputtered, and Spinister just rolled his optics.</p><p>“<i>Medical</i> port.” He took my wrist and stared at me. I sighed and opened the panel, and let him connect me to Viridian. Spinister twisted the wires on top of Veridian’s head; the world before her eyes went white and hot, and I felt something pulling at a module in my operating system.</p><p>“Cursed literacy code-wiggler,” said Spinister. That made sense, insofar as anything Spin ever said ever did—it sounded and felt like he’d replaced corrupted OS files by copying mine. I let him remove the cabling. I was just relieved that neither of us was sitting in a puddle, because Grimlock would never have let me live that down.</p><p>Viridian chuffed softly, then pulled up her user profile editor. It was a good idea; then we’d be able to see all the identifying information she’d provided to the site.</p><p>“How much of her language difficulty do you think is due to corrupted code?” I asked.</p><p>“It hasn’t shown me all the cracks,” said Spinister, shaking his head. “Multi-layered archaeological dis-inception required.”</p><p>Viridian erupted in hisses, snarls and a frustrated yowl. The screen was doing something that apparently required it to display a twisted blaze of flashing colours that would probably have hurt anyone’s optics, let alone her dark-adapted ones, or mine.</p><p>“Frag,” said Krok. “Her profile <i>deleted and scrubbed itself</i>.”</p><p>I frowned. “Did you see anything useful, at least?” Hacking his victims’ social media accounts seemed a little next-level for someone like Demus, but we had no idea whose laboratory it was underneath his office, and I couldn’t just comm Fortress Maximus and insist he tell me what he’d found down there.</p><p>Krok shook his head. “She barely got her second passphrase in.”</p><p>I took the laptop away from them both, slammed it shut and hit the recessed second power button with a claw. “Reboot it from backup,” I said, but then smoke came out of it and Spinister grabbed it and ran in the general direction of the airlock.</p><p>Krok just groaned.  “You can send Soundwave the bill?” I said hopefully. “It’s not the ship’s computer, at least.”</p><p>“No,” said Krok, frowning, because he would absolutely have let her do the same thing from his desk, and we both knew it.</p><p>Viridian made another soft, frustrated noise. I rubbed that spot between her ears I knew she liked, because I liked it too. “I don’t suppose you can write with a pen?”</p><p>“Who has a <i>pen</i>?” Fulcrum grumbled.</p><p>Krok rolled his optics. “I do,” he said, “but what does she write on?”</p><p>Misfire tossed a crumpled up wrapper from a takeout place (which I hoped was the last one we’d been to) in what was supposed to be our general direction. It hit Fulcrum on the nose, and he tossed it to me.</p><p>“I don’t want to hear anyone complain about the mess in here for at least three solari,” Misfire grumbled. “I cannot believe some of these aftrods, by the way! Some chunderhelm says I must have shooped the whole thing just because I blurred out Swerve’s Autobot badge!”</p><p>Viridian was writing sloppily on the thin greasy paper.</p><p><i>VIRIDIAN</i>, she wrote.</p><p>
  <i>VIRIDIAN = ONYCHARA OF KALIS<br/>
AUTOBOT DESIGNATION: BLACKCAT</i>
</p><p>After a moment, she began to get more comfortable holding the pen. I was impressed, because I hate writing anything down by hand myself, even with actual paper that isn’t sticky with grease.</p><p>
  <i>Ravage of Stanix did not carry me. But you are my mother. I accept you as mentor and guardian, but I left the Decepticons once before.</i>
</p><p>“That’s…that’s kind of you,” I said gently, “but that’s an awful lot of trust to place in someone you just met. I’m perfectly happy to help you whether or not you decide to stay with me or my faction—”</p><p>Her face screwed up in frustration. She started to draw some kind of chemical diagram, but the paper was too greasy and the pen ran out of ink a few times.</p><p>Spinister, who had just returned from his trip to the airlock, looked at me sidewise. “Did you think it was a joke when I said ‘Happy Mother’s Day’?”</p><p>“…yes?” My voice quavered slightly.</p><p><i>EXPERIMENTAL</i>, she wrote, and underlined the word three times. <i>I won’t have anything to do with Shockwave,</i> she added, laboriously.</p><p>“That’s fine,” I said, and ex-vented. Twice, when I realised how much waste heat I was building up. “I’m not a fan of his, either.”</p><p>Krok frowned and passed me his can of engex. “Don’t drink the whole thing.”</p><p>I didn’t. But I did take two gulps of it. “Was he behind that mess we got you out of?” It had looked like the sort of thing Shockwave might do.</p><p>Viridian shook her head. <i>Never did find out who was running that show. But puzzles are what I do best.</i></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0019"><h2>19. the grand façade so soon will burn</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Soundwave is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.</p><p>And Thundercracker wants us all to know he isn't really a dog.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"Love, I don't like to see so much pain--<br/>So much wasted, and this moment keeps slipping away<br/>I get so tired of working so hard for our survival<br/>I look to my time with you to keep me awake and alive..."</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdkqZSxTaX0">Ninja Sex Party</a>, "In Your Eyes" (cover)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Soundwave had, perhaps foolishly, thought that everything would work out once he’d rerouted the spacebridge.</p><p>And then, he’d thought that everything would work out once he’d got all the information he needed from Needlenose. But Needlenose was still alive and well and using up Sanctuary Station resources, because whenever Soundwave thought about just shooting him, he felt guilty about it. Not that he’d regretted stopping Horri-Bull from <i>betraying them all</i> to their Autobot captors for a hot astrosecond. Except that he did, even though he had had no choice.</p><p>Soundwave could imagine all too well how Needlenose must have been feeling. Even though Horri-Bull had been a complete idiot, and nothing at all like Ravage, and had probably been one of the people who’d joined the Decepticons simply because he liked to break things, make messes and bully people. Needlenose had also been an idiot, but Needlenose had believed in the cause, and he had been <i>Soundwave’s idiot</i>, until he’d found out about that.</p><p>It was <i>hard</i> to shoot your own idiots, no matter how much shooting they needed. This entire situation was giving Soundwave a new and deeply unwanted sort of respect for Megatron, who had never had this kind of trouble just shooting anyone, except Starscream.</p><p>But then he’d remember what Needlenose had tried to arrange for Ravage, and at that point, he didn’t want just to shoot him; he wanted to disassemble him, slowly and methodically.</p><p>Ravage would’ve just shot him. Ravage was also good at just shooting people who needed to be shot. Unfortunately, he’d promised Ravage she’d never have to look at Needlenose again, because he still felt guilty about making her put up with Ratbat, as a mind-wiped cassette, for so long.</p><p>The comm from Thundercracker had been a welcome relief from this dilemma. At least, he thought it was from Thundercracker, unless Buster had learned to use a computer. As smart as Thundercracker believed his dog was, there were limits, and it didn’t seem likely. It was, however, cute. And that was nice. “I hear Rav’s coming back?”</p><p>“Affirmative,” Soundwave said, and that was nice, too.</p><p>“Good job. Don’t frag it up. Ravage needs to know how important he—uh, she…uh, they? Are to you. I mean it. I’m sure Warp would say the same thing, if he was talking to me right now.”</p><p>Marissa Faireborn laughed in the background.</p><p>Cosmos and Howlback had just joined the comm, and Cosmos groaned quietly. “I should’ve known,” he said under his breath. “I <i>read</i> that fic.”</p><p>“Which one?” Thundercracker asked, completely oblivious to the context. “There was a whole series. Sometimes I’d write one just because Ravage looked sad.”</p><p>“Thundercracker,” said Cosmos, just as Wheeljack (whom Soundwave had <i>not</i> been expecting) joined the comm, “I believe you have a video filter up.”</p><p>“Yeah,” said Thundercracker. “I don’t want everyone on OnlyFans to know that I’m an alien. Marissa’s trying to help me get it off.”</p><p>At this point, Wheeljack cracked up.</p><p>Marissa Faireborn’s voice cut right through Wheeljack’s laughter. “You’re on OnlyFans? Seriously? Do you know what that’s actually <i>for</i>?”</p><p>Sadly, Soundwave, who had spent more time monitoring Earth’s datanets than he would’ve liked, did know what most people used OnlyFans for. He also found it entirely believable that Thundercracker had naively used it the way people were allegedly supposed to use it.</p><p>“I’m here live,” Thundercracker said, irritably. “Everyone here does know that I’m not a dog?”</p><p>“We know,” said Arcee.</p><p>Alpha Trion just politely screenshared a set of instructions for removing filters, and then the filter came down, revealing Thundercracker in all his glory, and Marissa, whom he gently placed on the arm of his chair. And Buster, who was asleep on his shoulder.</p><p>“So what’s going on over there, Soundwave?” Wheeljack was clearly not in the mood to waste time. “You don’t know how hard it was for me to keep Starscream off this call, but I told him you helped me get control of the spacebridge back.”</p><p>“Galvatron lied,” Soundwave said quietly. “He never intended to form an alliance with the Earth Defence Council. But I did. That is why I diverted the refugees to Sanctuary, which was undoubtedly where Galvatron told Starscream he was going to send them, before I returned control of the spacebridge completely to you.”</p><p>Marissa nodded. “So what was he going to do?”</p><p>“Send the refugees, accompanied by a number of his trusted agents, into the compromised <i>Ark-7</i>, land the Ark in Shanghai, and try to take over the planet. I didn’t know what was going on aboard the Ark, but until the spacebridge activation, I had no idea whether I was unable to sense the presence of living minds where they had been before because of new and improved Autobot shielding, an internal malfunction, or action on Galvatron’s part.”</p><p>“You had suspicions,” Cosmos pointed out. “I warned you that I couldn’t raise the Ark either.”</p><p>“That’s not helpful,” said Howlback, recognising that Arcee was about to go ballistic, and also that Soundwave was very unhappy and feeling betrayed, even though his face was as usual hidden from view. “If we’d acted on suspicions alone and been wrong, it would have been an act of war.”</p><p>“Howlback is correct,” said Soundwave, and ex-vented. It was a considerable effort for him to maintain normal syntax and modulation under this much stress, and the only reason he was actually able to do it was a backup translation routine he’d programmed for himself. As a result, he was running extremely hot, and grateful that Clobber kept refilling his coolant pitcher.</p><p>He’d started drinking from the pitcher directly. It just made things easier.</p><p>“So you’re telling me you had nothing to do with all the systems failures on the Ark,” Arcee began, and Soundwave cut her off:</p><p>“I had everything to do with resolving them. I took a virus I’d used to remove and replace the Onyx Interface source code from the Station’s systems, and loaded it onto your spacebridge controller so you could regain control over your ship.”</p><p>Arcee glared at him. “But now <i>you</i> can take control of the Ark.”</p><p>“I won’t,” said Soundwave flatly. “It was the Onyx code they were exploiting. I don’t know who Garrison Blackrock actually is, but I don’t believe it was named Onyx purely by coincidence. Shockwave has used the name Onyx as an alias consistently for quite some time. Just write some code of your own; is it really that difficult?”</p><p>“And I suppose you’re conveniently not working with him anymore, either,” said Arcee.</p><p>“I communicate with him far less often than you do with <i>your</i> brother,” Soundwave said quietly. “I thank you for arranging the delivery of Prime’s message to Needlenose. Had he not chosen to taunt me, it would not have been nearly so easy to backtrack his activity through your spacebridge controls.”</p><p>Alpha Trion’s optics began to glow, and he glowered at Arcee specifically.</p><p>“I don’t know what the Pit you’re talking about,” said Wheeljack.</p><p>“I’m not surprised,” said Soundwave. “But you probably also did not know that Arcee is Galvatron’s sister. Did you think that I didn’t know that, Arcee?”</p><p>Arcee glared at Soundwave.</p><p>“That is a very strange way to thank Soundwave for helping us save our own ship, Arcee,” said Alpha Trion very mildly. Arcee continued to glare at Soundwave.</p><p>“Are you saying that we need to eliminate all Onyx interface-based products?” Marissa’s voice was firm, but Soundwave could hear a barely-suppressed quaver under the top notes. “I was only able to help restore the Ark’s systems because I had Blackrock’s tablet, and now…now it’s worthless. Your virus destroyed it completely.” She frowned. “There was a lot of information on there that I would have liked to access.”</p><p>“I’m sorry,” said Soundwave, “but you do still have Blackrock?”</p><p>“Galvatron has him. We think.” Marissa breathed in and out slowly.</p><p>“Warp took him. We think,” said Thundercracker.</p><p>Soundwave winced. “I tried to contact him, but he didn’t respond except to say he was tired of being ordered around by people who weren’t trying to help him. I find it hard to believe he was more responsive to Galvatron, which leads me to believe…”</p><p>“Exactly,” said Thundercracker.</p><p>“If you can get through to him, though, I <i>will</i> help.” Soundwave shrugged. “I never understood why Galvatron wasn’t doing more for him. I still don’t understand that.”</p><p>“Galvatron does what Galvatron does,” said Arcee, finally willing to speak again. “I talk to him because I’d rather know what he’s thinking than not. I report anything potentially useful he says to Optimus, but I’m sure he’s aware of that.”</p><p>“I think you should be telling Starscream,” Howlback said quietly. “He’s the actual ruler, isn’t he?”</p><p>Soundwave was slightly alarmed to have his subordinate speaking over him, but at the same time, nobody could accuse Howlback of just being petty for wanting to keep the Prime out of the loop, and Alpha Trion and Arcee, at the very least, were old enough to remember that Orion Pax had been a Decepticon once, in all but name, though he had never taken the badge.</p><p>“I’ll consider it,” said Arcee, in a tone that made it clear she would do no such thing.</p><p>“I might be induced to consume my own visor, with cheer, if Prime does not do something stupid in response to all this,” Soundwave said as mildly as possible. “He is just as inclined to rash action as Megatron was.”</p><p>Alpha Trion made a pained face, but didn’t try to deny it.</p><p>“I might hold you to that,” said Arcee.</p><p>It was, of course, at that moment that Starscream chose to join them. “Soundwave,” he said without preamble, “what was Ravage doing on Tebris VII? After all the trouble she made for Fortress Maximus, I think we have a right to know. She took an Autobot operative with her when she left. Do you have any thoughts about why she chose to do that?”</p><p>“I have many,” said Soundwave. “Few of them can be appropriately expressed in a gathering of this nature. I do know that the person she chose to remove was a grievously injured cougaraider, and nobody’s better qualified to assist that person than Glit, who is <i>here</i>.”</p><p>“Next you’re going to blame that mess on Galvatron, too,” said Starscream idly, inspecting his claws.</p><p>“No,” said Soundwave. “Ravage is still in transit and I have not had a chance to debrief her. But the little that I’ve been told doesn’t sound like Galvatron’s work.”</p><p>“He’s not exactly a science guy,” said Howlback, her dentae gritted, because Soundwave had told her, and also told Glit, about the situation.</p><p>Soundwave nodded. “We do know that Galvatron and Needlenose were aware of that situation, because Lockdown shot Ravage and her companions down on Tebris, and he told her so before she killed him. If you’ve been briefed at all on what they found on Tebris, you can probably imagine why they shot Ravage down. Under the circumstances, given that the planet is still in orbit, I think she showed admirable restraint.”</p><p>Starscream frowned, but he looked directly into his screen. “I’d have to agree,” he finally said. “I’ve told Fortress Maximus not to pursue Ravage or her companions, unless of course they commit a crime in territory under our jurisdiction.”</p><p>“You should tell him to share his findings with us,” said Soundwave. “More of my people than yours are likely to be affected, or to be looking for someone who’s missing.” He thought of Dominus Ambus, Ravage having shared with him who Ultra Magnus really was, but did not bring it up, because he wouldn’t out Minimus Ambus unless he was given a very good reason…and he hoped he would not be given such a reason. Disclosing a beastformer’s secret would never sit well with him.</p><p>“I’ll take that under advisement,” said Starscream. Soundwave knew very well that he probably wouldn’t. At least the thing had been said.</p><p>“We would like you to offer those survivors bearing Decepticon badges safe passage to Sanctuary,” said Soundwave. “I know that they are still fond of locking people up back there on Cybertron. But those people have already served sentences far worse than anything your courts would be able to impose on them, Starscream. And you know it.”</p><p>Starscream made an annoyed little moue with his lip-plates, and shrugged. That meant he really <i>would</i> consider it, so Soundwave nodded and let it drop.</p><p>“If you want to borrow my spacebridge again,” said Starscream, “you’d better not pull anything else like this.”</p><p>“It wasn’t him,” Wheeljack said wearily. “He helped me <i>fix</i> it.”</p><p>“So he says,” Starscream acknowledged. “It’s even probably true.” He quirked a smile. “I’m off to refuel with Windblade and the Prime. Shall I tell him you said hello, Soundwave?”</p><p>“Please don’t.” Soundwave looked around at the others. “What else do we need to discuss?”</p><p>Alpha Trion made an odd sound in his throat, like a human coughing up something disgusting, and started to speak.</p><p>Twelve breems later, Soundwave accepted Howlback’s offer to take care of Needlenose, even though Ravage’s latest essay made him feel more than a little guilty about it. Ravage would probably have pointed out that Howlback had made the offer, and that since Howlback was not only herself a beastformer but also one of Ravage’s creche-sibs, Howlback probably had her own reasons for wanting to kill the mech. But Ravage wasn’t there, so he couldn’t be sure. Then, he dropped into a hot oil bath into which he’d dumped half a bottle of Ravage’s favourite self-made botanical extract, just so he could pretend she was in it beside him.</p><p>He should’ve asked them to open the spacebridge again for <i>her</i>, and the W.A.P. He would have, if only Wheeljack and Alpha Trion had been present; but Starscream and Arcee had been there, too. And he couldn't trust either of <i>them</i>, especially not the one who was Galvatron's sister.</p><p>Ravage's ping to his comm came just as he was about to reach for a bottle of high-grade, and he set it back down and closed his optics as he greeted her. Even though he couldn’t gather her actual body into his arms or take off his mask and bury his face in her neck cabling…if he let his thoughts wander out through his spark and their bond as they spoke, he could <i>feel</i> her, and that was what he needed, more than anything.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>"Accepting all I've done and said, I want to stand and stare again<br/>Until there is nothing left, and it remains there, in your eyes<br/>Whatever comes and goes, I will hear your silent cries<br/>I will touch this tender wall, until I know I'm home again..."</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdkqZSxTaX0">Ninja Sex Party</a>, "In Your Eyes" (additional original lyrics)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0020"><h2>20. safe and sound (until proven otherwise)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>I could really have done with a spa visit.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"Could you not be sad, could you not break down?<br/>After all I won't let go until you're safe and sound<br/>Until you're safe and sound...<br/>There's beauty in release,<br/>There's no one left to please but you and me..."</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErGlPwAVgp0">Sheryl Crow</a>, "Safe and Sound"</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Crankcase was apparently serious about not letting me play ‘Shoot Shoot Bang Bang’ anymore. Viridian was allowed to, but she preferred to go back to the berth and rest, and I was relieved, because I didn’t think it was a good game for a very traumatised half-grown mech who couldn’t talk to be playing with people the size of Spinister, Fulcrum and Grimlock.</p><p>I went back in the cargo bay—into the contraband storage area where Grimlock and I had been hiding, before—and pinged Soundwave on our private channel. He was alone in an oil bath, recovering from a long day of meetings and explanations.</p><p>Dual consciousness is always jarring at first; one set of sensations told me I was lying down on a rug that had seen better days, propped up against a bale of emergency supplies, and the other set of sensations told me I was lying in a tub of warm oil, and Soundwave was holding me close, my aft against his panel, between his thighs, my head on his chest, his arms wrapped tight around my body.</p><p>“It’s been almost a Solar year since I’ve actually touched you,” Soundwave murmured. “If Arcee and Starscream hadn’t been involved in that conversation I would have asked them to open the spacebridge again. You and the small one need to be home with your family. With me.”</p><p>“Don’t you mean an Earthish year?” I teased. “I’m sure Jupiter takes a lot longer to go around Sol than the Earth does.”</p><p>Soundwave’s laughter was soft and fond, and the echoes of his fingertips sparked and glittered along my transformation seams. “You’re so big now. Bigger even than you were when I met you first in Rodion, before they cut you down. And somehow even more beautiful.”</p><p>“It’s dark in here and the screen’s not on.” But I felt lip-plates on my neck, and a glossa-tip slipping between cables, and charge building up in my interface array.</p><p>“I have synaesthesia. I don’t need my optics to see you. I’ve already begun to build a new map of you in my mind. I can feel the flow of power under your plate and your protoform mesh, through the cables and lines.”</p><p>I felt it as he felt it. As overclocked as he was, I bet he was putting out enough waste heat to melt the snow outside on Io. “How much coolant have you had to drink today?”</p><p>“A lot,” Soundwave admitted. “I’m using a lot of the Station bandwidth as well. I should feel some guilt about using so much power and bandwidth for personal pleasure. There are others here who are separated from their loved ones.”</p><p>“Bit late for you to stop now,” I said; the charge rose through my body as his energy flowed through our spark-bond. “But I won’t try and draw it out.”</p><p>“You can be just a little bit selfish. It won’t cost us nearly as much as all of the meetings we’ve had today,” he said fondly. “I’m sending Starscream a bill for the uplink to Cybertron.”</p><p>“Talk later.” I closed my optics and bumped the input from the spark-bond to highest priority. We could use simple audio or even just text to have a discussion. His mind slipped into mine and our sensoria merged; memories of pleasures past as vivid as the moments in which we had made them, remembered sensations stretching themselves to spread through the body I had now, rocking into each other’s minds the way I had rocked my anterior node on the base of his spike on those nights.</p><p>As I began to near overload, the sensation of tape winding through me and over the heads in his chest compartment, surged up from the depths of deep storage and into my consciousness; that brought us both crashing over the edge and into each other like breaking waves.</p><p>After we rebooted we established the connection again at a much lower power level—one that was safer for him, and less expensive of resources: audio and surface-level emotions only.</p><p>“We gave that up so we could be free to consent to each other,” he whispered. “I’m surprised you would want to remember it.”</p><p>“I wanted to forget the pain,” I said, “but not the joy. So someone made us a toy as a gift for our conjunxion. It’s a long strand of tape that runs through jacks that sink into my dorsal access panel and slides through your chest,” I murmured, “so we can still have that sensation again, just to play with, and only when we want it.”</p><p>He laughed out loud. “I love you,” he said, “and tell Spinister thank you.”</p><p>Cassette uploads were pleasurable, but they didn’t have to be sexual; in most cases they weren’t, which was a good thing given the requisite power imbalance. But we had been lovers before, and for us, it had just become another way to interface.</p><p>“I’m not afraid of Screamer anymore,” I said. “He’s got no reason to hate me now. Even if he still wanted Megatron, which he doesn’t, I wouldn’t be in the way of that. I wouldn’t trust him, but I don’t think he’d screw me over for fun.”</p><p>“He did say he’d call Fortress Maximus off you,” Soundwave replied.</p><p>“But you’re right not to trust Arcee. She nearly killed me once. She scares me. And she still talks to her brother.”</p><p>“Told them she talks. Alpha Trion: not happy.”</p><p>“You sure you shouldn’t have kept that in reserve?” I knew I should open my optics and close my panel, but I was <i>comfortable</i>. And nobody else used the cargo bay when we didn’t have any cargo.</p><p>“If we’re all supposed to be at peace, then the Autobots should know, too.” Soundwave sucked air in to cool himself down, and I grinned. He went on. “Viridian = important to Autobots. Fortress Maximus complained to Starscream. Specifically wants her back? But she is not mature.”</p><p>“Ugh. She tried to sign into Autobuddies and activated some kind of virus that killed Krok’s laptop,” I groaned. “Not giving her up, even if she keeps her stupid red badge.”</p><p>“Far from me to complain,” Soundwave said wearily. “I don’t like the badge, but she’s young. Time you had one of your own.”</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~*~*~*~</p>
</div>“<i>Krok</i> won ‘Shoot Shoot Bang Bang’?” Laugh if you will but it made me a little nervous. Aren’t miracles supposed to come in threes? Misfire got Necrobot evidence, Crankcase apologised, Viridian couldn’t talk but she could still write—and Krok won the game?<p>Which one of these wasn’t a miracle? Or were we due for two more? And if we were due for two more, what kind of run of bad luck were we heading into?</p><p>“Trophy,” said Crankcase, “wind up your jaw into place, sit the frag down, and eat something.”</p><p>Well, it wasn’t the worst advice. So I followed it. Krok had apparently hidden a crate of energon treats in his room, knowing they’d all have been despoiled at once if left in the galley, and he passed them out, and Viridian slipped into my lap.</p><p>“Let’s watch <i>Real Housewives</i>!” Misfire suggested. “You’ll love it, Cat. Swerve sent it. It’s just like that old <i>Life in Vos</i> show you used to watch, the one that hacked Starscream off.”</p><p>“More human TV?” I groaned.</p><p>“No,” said Misfire, “see, it’s proof that the humans are people like we are. They can behave as badly as we do, especially when they’re rich!”</p><p>“I’d like to find out how badly I could behave if I got rich,” Crankcase muttered under his breath.</p><p>I gave him a Look. “I bet you’d be nicer if you got money. Just to be perverse like that.”</p><p>“She got you,” said Fulcrum, laughing, “but I vote NO on <i>Real Housewives</i>.”</p><p>“Why?” Krok looked up at him sidewise.</p><p>“Because I’ll <i>purge fuel</i>,” Fulcrum said firmly. “I don’t want to watch disgusting organics being disgusting together.”</p><p>“But it’s not porn—” Misfire said plaintively.</p><p>“Ugh! You have <i>human <b>porn</b>?</i>” Fulcrum clutched at his abdomen, made a gurgling sound, and ran out of the room.</p><p>“No,” said Misfire, and then, when he saw the look Krok was giving him, crumpled a little. “I only watched <i>one</i>.” He sighed. “I feel sorry for humans.”</p><p>“I don’t want to know,” I said. “Do you, Viridian?”</p><p>She looked up at me, rolled her optics, and yawned.</p><p>All I really knew about human interfacing arrays was that they only had half the expected anatomy, and whether they got the spike or the valve was apparently a matter of sheer luck. Megatron had told me that someone on Earth had decided a long time ago that everyone with a valve was a femme, back when he was still trying to figure out how I was different as a male rather than a female, which in his defence is a difficult question to answer even for me.</p><p>Meanwhile, Misfire took the opportunity to screen the first episode of the show. <i>What’s a housewife anyway?</i> Viridian wrote on a datapad with a stylus, and held it up to the rest of us.</p><p>Crankcase laughed. “Your momma,” he said, and winked at me. “If Soundwave has his way of it anyway.”</p><p>“Apparently a wealthy and unpleasant human femme,” said Krok. “But Misfire’s right. You have to be sapient to be this much of an aft. Why does it matter how old Jo’s conjunx is anyway?”</p><p>“Humans don’t live long,” said Crankcase, “so the guy’s gonna drop dead on her, and when he does she’s gonna be pretty old herself and have trouble finding another one.” He popped a whole energon treat into his mouth. “I think Lauri and Vicki should make out.”</p><p>Viridian hissed. I agreed with her. “We don’t know nearly enough about these people to ship them,” I complained.</p><p>Misfire shrugged. “They go to the spa together a lot?”</p><p>“By that logic you and I have been clanging for millennia,” I said with a snort.</p><p>“You go to the <i>spa</i>?” Crankcase snorted. “I see how it goes. You go to Ravage for your <i>girl time</i> and the rest of us get you unwashed and uncensored.”</p><p>“Me Grimlock want go spa,” Grimlock announced, settling himself on the opposite side of me and Viridian from Misfire. “Look like fun.”</p><p>“It is,” I said. “I’ll take you someday when you’re better and I’m not so busy.” I could really have done with a spa visit. And I’d have liked very much to have had a chance for one before I saw Soundwave next.</p><p>Crankcase threw up his hands. “I can think of a lot more fun stuff to do with the money,” he said.</p><p>“You wouldn’t feel that way if you could remember when people like you weren’t let into nice spas,” I said wryly, “because apparently poverty and beastformer CNA are somehow transmissible through bath oil.”</p><p>“I can still think of better places to integrate.” Crankcase shrugged. “Why’s that kid so concerned about being as good at baseball as the big guy is? Is that kinda some kind of human Functionist thing?”</p><p>“I’m not sure,” said Misfire, “but the big guy’s his father. Remember these people are rich enough to have come from a House.” He started in on an explanation that I knew was going to be tedious and that was when a self-care alert went off on my HUD, because yes, I’m the kind of person who needs those, sometimes.</p><p>I excused myself to head to the cycler, hoping Fulcrum wouldn’t still be in there. He wasn’t. When I came out Krok was waiting in the hall, but apparently he was waiting for me, not the cycler. “I couldn’t reach Soundwave today. Was he talking to you?”</p><p>“Part of the day. Before that he was in meetings and after I’m sure he went to recharge.” I leaned against the wall. “Is something wrong?”</p><p>“On our end?” Krok shrugged. “Nothing that hasn’t <i>always</i> been wrong.” Then, he frowned. “How are <i>you</i> holding up? I didn’t know you when you were younger, Ravage, but even if I couldn’t have read what was written all over your face, I’d be an idiot if I didn’t think your head had been in a bad place.”</p><p>“The rest of me was in a pretty bad place too,” I said. “But we trashed it. So I’m okay.” I shrugged. There was no point in dwelling on that. “I just miss Soundwave. That’s all.”</p><p>I could tell Krok didn’t believe me. And he might have even been right. I hadn’t recharged well, but Viridian had needed me, and then…Misfire. But I also didn’t feel like trying to explain. Even though he couldn’t carry on much of a conversation, it felt like enough that Grimlock had been with me throughout the entire thing. After all, he was also a beastformer. He also had known that he could’ve been one of those people. I had seen in his eyes that he recognised that, in spite of his brain module damage. He might not be able to talk about it, but he understood it in a way that Krok couldn’t.</p><p>“I promised him I’d bring you back safe. And I left you behind.” Krok looked down at his pedes. “With <i>Grimlock</i>.”</p><p>“Hey, Grimlock was great! I couldn’t have asked for a better partner on that one.” I shrugged again. “It’s all right, Krok. I’m fine. Just…kindly remember that I am no pampered and cosseted princeling. No matter how much Soundwave pampers and cossets me. No matter how many fancy gel pastilles he makes me, no matter how often I went to a spa in the days when we still had them…no matter how many old newspark toys that I was denied he tracks down for me…I was still a slave, and I have not forgotten how to be a spy, an assassin and a saboteur.”</p><p>Then I hugged him, because I knew he wouldn’t hug me. “I’m still your friend.”</p><p>He hugged me back, but very carefully, even though I was a lot bigger and stronger than he’d ever known me to be before. It was frustrating.</p><p>“We don’t want to be the Glorious Lords,” I said, although I liked Lugnut, and I didn’t much care to make fun of him or any of his clones. “Just first among equals, and only first because somebody has to be. I loved Megatron. But I’m really, really not Megatron, and neither is Soundwave.”</p><p>Krok nodded, and hugged me harder, and then let me go. “Did Soundwave have anything interesting to say? I mean…interesting to me. Not you.”</p><p>I laughed. “Fortress Maximus told Starscream about our encounter. The bad thing about it is that means everyone knows I am on your ship. The good thing about it is Starscream told him to leave us the frag alone.”</p><p>Krok’s jaw dropped. “Well, there’s your miracle,” he said.</p><p>I had to laugh. We were up to five. “You’re right,” I said. “But for what it’s worth, Starscream hated me because he thought I was his rival for a while. Even <i>he</i> wouldn’t have seen me done dirty like that. When he failed to murder me, the attempts he made were always clean.” Then I laughed. “I would not have predicted I’d ever feel grateful for that.”</p><p>“No,” said Krok. “Certainly not.”</p><p>I let my head fall back onto his chest, mostly because I was tired. He put his arm around my shoulders. “If you need to go and rest, go rest. I’ll watch Viridian.”</p><p>I shook my head. “It’s all right. I may fall over into recharge on the couch, but I won’t die if I do.”</p><p>“I was just thinking, though,” I said.</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>“Krok,” I said, “if Galvatron knows I am on this ship, and the Autobots know I am on this ship, and Starscream knows I am on this ship…I don’t see the point of taking the long way home. Do you?”</p><p>Krok chuckled. “Nope. We’ll get you home to your lover as soon as we can.” He patted my shoulder awkwardly.</p><p>I hugged him—<i>hard</i>. “What was that thing that Spinister said about churches?”</p><p>Krok laughed again. “Who knows what Spinister’s saying, except when it’s obvious?” Then he let me go, pushing me gently away. “Anything else?”</p><p>I thought for a moment. “Actually…yes.” I sighed. “Apparently Fortress Maximus didn’t just try to take Viridian back on general principles. Starscream asked Soundwave why I had taken an Autobot operative with me, and Soundwave was kind enough to tell them she needed to be seen by Glit.”</p><p>Krok nodded. “That’s not really much of a surprise. I had the feeling, based on what she said, that she’d been sent there and got caught, not that she was just unlucky enough to run across someone malicious by accident.” He glanced away. “Does that mean Soundwave is going to have a problem with you bringing her home? She can stay with us—”</p><p>“No,” I said quickly. “He said he doesn’t like the badge, but she can stay. I think he understands she’s young enough to be able to see more than one side of a thing. And also, she had an encounter with Shockwave. It won’t take her long to see that we’re not all like that.” I ex-vented. “Still…<i>thanks</i>.”</p><p>“Shockwave,” Krok repeated, shuddering slightly. “Still. I’ve had greener recruits.”</p><p>I laughed. “I doubt that. Well. We have lots to discuss with her. For starters, whether she still likes Viridian, or would prefer to go back to Onychara.”</p><p>Krok began to lead me back into the living area. “We can both talk to her. We’ve got time. Even without the circuitous routing, we won’t get back to the Station tomorrow.”</p><p>Fulcrum slunk past us to stand in the entrance of the living area. He was watching the entertainment, and pretending not to. He did not look like someone who was going to purge fuel.</p><p>We stopped behind Fulcrum. “Hey,” I said. “Either stop being dramatic and sit down with the rest of us to watch this silliness, or go back to your room and sulk.”</p><p>Fulcrum snorted. “It’s still gross,” he said, but he preceded us in.</p><p>We all ended up more or less in a big comfortable pile. Room was made for me between Misfire and Grimlock. Viridian slipped back into my lap, and we both ended up purring. I wondered why I had never once seen Autobots in a pile like this the whole time I’d been on the <i>Lost Light</i>. Maybe it just all happened behind closed doors. I hoped so, anyway. I didn’t want to think their lives were devoid of this.</p><p>Well, some of them probably were. I doubted Ultra Magnus ever got this close to anyone. But that was really his own fault…for making the choice to live a lie. I knew it would’ve been hard to give up what he’d been brought into shortly after his forging, but I wouldn’t have been able to do what he’d done. As antisocial as some people thought I was…I couldn’t have lived that way.</p><p>Then I frowned.</p><p>I’d sent Megatron a ping earlier in the day, because I was <i>worried</i> about him after that trip to the Necroworld. There had been no response, except for his auto-responder.</p><p>I pinged him again. There was still no response. Not even an auto-responder.</p><p>Just…nothing.</p><p>Viridian made an unhappy miaow and Misfire and Grimlock both looked directly at me. “What is it?” Misfire said, frowning.</p><p>“I can’t get Megatron. Not even his auto-responder. Not even the old pre-programmed one.”</p><p>“He’s probably recharging,” Misfire said gently.</p><p>I switched on the interstellar time-dilation calculator and was almost, just for an astrosec, briefly relieved. “Well. This <i>is</i> his normally scheduled defragmentation time. But I have a private channel. I’d at least get a ping back, normally, just a ‘still here’ ping…I didn’t get <i>anything</i>. No confirmation at all that he even still <i>exists</i>.”</p><p>Misfire scowled. “Okay,” he said, and got up. “Time to return the favour.”</p><p>I followed him back into the room, Viridian on my heels. Misfire commed <i>Swerve</i>.</p><p>“Yeah mate, I know it’s his defrag time, and what the hell is he doing having a scheduled defrag, that is <i>mad</i>, what Decepticon <i>does that</i>—but she shoulda got something, Swerve, she’s his amica!”</p><p>Viridian jumped up without warning, forcing me to grab her and hold her like she was a pet. I would’ve been annoyed had it not been so clear that she wanted to comfort me. Meanwhile, Misfire was nodding and frowning.</p><p>“Okay mate, you too. Thanks.” Misfire broke the connection. “Swerve said he’s going to let Riptide take over the bar for the night and go and find out what happened. He also said you worry too much and that I was to try and distract you with stupid TV, so we’re doing that now, okay?”</p><p>Krok stood in the doorway, watching us. “That sounds like a good idea, Ravage.”</p><p>Viridian looked up at me expectantly.</p><p>“All right,” I said. “But don’t expect me to go to recharge right away when the rest of you all wear out.”</p><p>Misfire slid his arm around my shoulders. “Don’t worry, Cat. There’s six whole seasons of Orange County alone. We can do this all night if we have to!”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0021"><h2>21. and I lost the taste for judging right from wrong</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The past is the past and the future is before us. We can only do what is possible to do now.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"You can wear your fur like a river on fire<br/>But you'd better be sure if you're making God a liar<br/>I'm a rattlesnake, babe,<br/>I'm like fuel on a fire<br/>So if you're gonna get made, don't be afraid of what you've learned..."</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmBgxP56R1I">Blitzen Trapper</a>, "Furr"</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I tried to do what?” Megatron didn’t have the worst processor ache he’d ever had, but he’d definitely have put this one on the top 100. “If I tried to <i>kill someone</i>, why am I not in the brig?”</p><p>“Well,” said Velocity, “you’d been assaulted during a defragmentation cycle. Rang and I agreed that it was a perfectly understandable reaction given your millions of years of combat experience, especially since there were needles in your neck when you came online.”</p><p>That certainly did explain everything, including the processor ache. It just didn’t make <i>sense</i>. Why would a sanitation bot like Tailgate attempt to perform mnemosurgery on him?</p><p>“Your outgoing comms were also disabled,” Velocity continued. “Swerve got a message from your amica that she couldn’t even get a ping to confirm you were still online.”</p><p>“No one could confirm…whether or not I had called for help.” Megatron scowled. He hadn’t, because asking for help wouldn’t have done any good when they’d put needles in his neck before, so he certainly wouldn’t have thought to do it if—no, when—somebody tried to do it again. But whoever was behind this had wanted to be sure that he looked as guilty as possible.</p><p>“Somebody wanted to frame me for murder?” Megatron scratched his helm. There were plenty of people aboard who thought he should either be dead already or rotting forever away in a cell. Setting him up to kill again would make sense, even if this particular arrangement did make it look like self-defence to anyone rational enough not to take leave of their senses upon hearing his name.</p><p>“Not someone particularly smart.” Velocity shrugged. “I can’t think of anyone with a few million years of combat experience who <i>wouldn’t</i> react violently to being assaulted during recharge.” She handed him a cube of energon. It wasn’t drugged, but he didn’t question it. She was a medic; if she wanted to give him undrugged energon, who was he to argue? He drank it, relishing the cool clarity of medical-grade.</p><p>“Exactly,” he finally said. “Neither can I. If Ravage had been there…she would’ve <i>shredded</i> him. And I don’t think anyone would’ve blamed her, either.”</p><p>“Since Ravage has left the ship,” Velocity said delicately, “do you think you should bunk with someone else for a while?”</p><p>Megatron laughed bitterly. “Even if I wanted to share space with another person who wasn’t my amica…who would want <i>me</i> for a roommate?”</p><p>Velocity shrugged, purposefully not meeting his optics with hers. “Well…if there’s nobody else you consider a friend, what about someone who cared very much about keeping you alive long enough to stand trial, perhaps?”</p><p>Megatron snorted. “If you mean my SIC, I <i>guarantee</i> that will not happen.” It was a ridiculous thought, hilarious if you knew how much of a secret Minimus was hiding, except that it wasn’t hilarious at all when he thought of it from Minimus’ perspective, and not just because it wouldn’t be restful to recharge in a suit of armour or two.</p><p>“I suppose not,” Velocity said. “It would be awkward for a number of reasons.” She smiled at him, knowingly, and also infuriatingly, because he did not have the first idea what she thought she knew, but whatever it was, wasn’t true. Unless of course, she knew about Minimus. She was a medic, after all, but that wouldn’t have occasioned a smile like that one. “What about your Co-captain?”</p><p>“I know this is the worst possible time to say so,” Megatron said, rolling his optics, “but we’d kill each other in our sleep.” He stretched, and swung his legs off the side of the berth. “So where is Tailgate, anyway? I’m assuming I must have done him significant damage…”</p><p>“You would have killed him, if Cyclonus hadn’t stopped you.” Velocity began to straighten up the treatment room. “I wasn’t there, so I didn’t see the sequence of events. It’s not my job to stop fights, it’s my job to take care of you all.”</p><p>Megatron finished his cube. “Even if nobody’d fragged with my comms,” he said, “this still wouldn’t make any sense. Isn’t sneaking into my room and sticking needles into my neck a really bizarre and needlessly painful way to commit suicide? I haven’t done anything to Tailgate. He missed the war, same as you. There is absolutely no reason for this.”</p><p>“You’re not the only person to have noted that,” Velocity agreed. “When he comes out of it, you can be sure that Reng will be asking him about it. In the meantime…” She shrugged. “They’re improving the security of your habsuite, and I don’t have any medical reason to confine you here. But there’s somebody on this ship who really, <i>really</i> wants you shot dead, or thrown into the brig where you won’t be able to defend yourself. And I don’t think it’s Tailgate. Aside from Rodimus, Ultra Magnus, Cyclonus, Swerve and myself…I don’t know who to rule out. Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to stay in the medbay?”</p><p>Megatron shook his head. “I’ll be on the bridge. I don’t want anyone thinking they’ve won something.” He got up and inspected himself in the mirror.</p><p>Velocity ex-vented, exasperated. “I figured as much,” she said. “But please comm that poor terrified person you call your amica and let her know you’re not dead. I’m amazed she’s yet to file for platonic severance.”</p><p>“So am I,” said Megatron, with a grin, “but I’ll take it under advisement. Is Cyclonus all right?”</p><p>“I think he will be,” said Velocity. “Eventually. He might be a bigger idiot than Ravage is, though.”</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~*~*~*~</p>
</div>Esmeral was up late. She had just finished copy-editing the latest draft of Ravage’s manuscript, because she couldn’t stay in recharge. When the essays were all arranged in order, and linked together by poetry, it was not only subversive, but also weirdly comforting, which she knew was what the Decepticons needed. But it was still odd. It wasn’t the rousing call to action that Megatron’s early writings had been. It was the still, soft voice of a memory, calling you back to a dream you might have forgotten, a reminder of a time when you might have been wholly yourself without knowing who you were, and even if you knew how badly you could be hurt, you could still imagine a time when you could be happy.<p>“Esme, what are you doing awake?” Deathsaurus tugged at her wing, and Esmeral looked down at him fondly.</p><p>“How am I supposed to be otherwise, with Tarn hanging around like a bad omen? I’m wondering how long we can get away with this,” she said, leaning over to kiss him. “I’m known to be in Ravage’s court; Tarn thinks you’re with <i>him</i>.”</p><p>Deathsaurus closed all four of his optics. “Tarn thinks a lot of things. Some of them may even be true. I’m figuring all of this out on the fly, just like you are.” He groaned. “Did Megatron really name an alt ‘Sorry That Tarn Kissed Your Consort’? What a sore loser he is. It would help if Ravage would just nod along when Tarn says crazy things on his or her posts instead of dissecting his arguments like an organic biologist with a brand new specimen.”</p><p>“Ravage is probably very bored on the long trip home,” Esmeral said, “but I’ll bring it up to her, Dezza. ‘Eucryphtid’ is so annoying, though, it’s honestly difficult not to argue, even for me.”</p><p>“Well, until I get him out of my feathers, kindly continue making the effort.” Deathsaurus was clearly trying to relax, and his luck was apparently not any better than Esmeral’s.</p><p>“Oh, I will. It’s different, when he is <i>right here</i>.” Her wings rustled. “I would never endanger you. Ever.”</p><p>Deathsaurus ex-vented, sighing. “I find him…sad, you know. If he weren’t so powerful, he’d be nobody. And he’s <i>hurt</i> by what Megatron’s done, even if the rest of us know it’s the best thing the obsessed old clanger’s done in the last million years. Even more so than Soundwave was, and Megatron doesn’t have his lover in berth.”</p><p>“Because he doesn’t have one,” said Esmeral. “And he doesn’t have one because he’s pathetic and there’s no room for anything other than Megatron in the twisted space of his sputtering spark.”</p><p>She felt a pang of guilt for saying so. She knew she shouldn’t have been so judgemental, but she hated having Tarn anywhere near their people, and whether or not Dezza remained on The List, she certainly did. And even though she knew Deathsaurus loved her, their initial meetings had been arranged because she had inherited a Warworld of her own.</p><p>Esmeral wasn’t just concerned for herself, but also for her people, as well as her lover and his people, and all of the other worlds that would declare for Soundwave and Ravage once they officially did. “I know,” she said after a moment, “that that’s what Megatron <i>did</i> to him.”</p><p>Deathsaurus shook his head. “Not all of it. The others aren’t so bad…or they are bad in different ways. Nickel is young and would be fine with us. The pet is not a pet at all, and needs to be put out of its misery. Tarn will have to be put out of the rest of our misery, but I wish I did not have to do it while he’s under my hospitality. That’s not our way.”</p><p>Esmeral frowned, because she didn’t want to say what she had to say. “No. Don’t kill him when he’s under your roof as a guest. I am not your conjunx <i>yet</i>. Kill him on Ankokuyousai, and pay me the forfeit for killing <i>my</i> guest. If he has to come to <i>my</i> world, as he insists upon doing, I can’t permit him to leave it.”</p><p>“I was thinking,” Deathsaurus said idly, “of letting Leozack do it, since he wants to, so badly.”</p><p>That. That was a <i>bad</i> idea.</p><p>“But if he frags the whole thing, being the hothead he is,” Esmeral finally managed, “then we’re all fragged.”</p><p>“If you involve his sister, he’ll never forgive you,” Deathsaurus warned her, tracing her cheek with a fingertip.</p><p>“I would rather be unforgiven by Leozack than killed by Tarn, Dezza.” She leaned over to kiss him again. “This is a job for Lyzack, not her brother.”</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>~*~*~*~</p>
</div>Minimus Ambus sat at the small desk in his habsuite, in the middle of the third shift. He too was sleepless. He had just received an encrypted message from Ravage, who was aboard <i>The Weak Anthropic Principle</i>, a ship with which he was not personally familiar. Lately, he had heard a great deal about the ship and its crew from his successor as Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord—Fortress Maximus—and he’d also heard even more about them from Megatron.<p>Ravage had taken no steps whatsoever to make the message deniable on her part, although she had also not taken any measures which would have made it possible for her to verify whether the message was read or received, unless she received a response. For that at least, Minimus respected her. He was afraid to open the message, which was ridiculous. He’d already considered what she might or might not know about him on numerous occasions. He’d braced himself for the impact, if she decided to tell anyone else, but so far as he knew, she hadn’t.</p><p>Was that about to change?</p><p>After a long moment of contemplation, he opened the message, which was addressed, notably, to Minimus Ambus of the House of Ambustus Minor, and not to Ultra Magnus, which was the only name by which she had ever addressed him before.</p><p>
  <i>To Minimus Ambus Ambustus, Second-in-Command of the <span class="u">Lost Light</span>,<br/>
formerly known as Ultra Magnus, Enforcer Emeritus of the Tyrest Accord,</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Ravage Stanixa, Vox Destron, Soundwave Kymar Kymatos conjuncta, sends:</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Greetings—</i>
</p><p>
  <i>I will not call you ‘dear’ Minimus, because we have never had an honest acquaintance until now, though you have always known who I really am, and I have known who you really are since the night I discovered the body of your relative aboard the quantum duplicate of the ship where you serve. But I want to speak with you honestly now.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>I know that you believe your brother, Rewind’s first conjunx, to be dead, and no doubt you have good reason to think so, and perhaps there are also reasons why you did not tell Rewind what happened to him.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>But I also know that there are a great many missing and murdered beastformers whose fates were never learned by those who loved them, missed them, cared for them, and depended upon them. And I cannot in good conscience set aside the possibility that your brother may have also been one of them.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>I am about to petition Fortress Maximus and the office of the Tyrest Accord for a full and public accounting of the designations of those individuals recovered from the facility that Fortress Maximus, the crew of the <i>Weak Anthropic Principle</i> and I jointly uncovered and disabled on the planet Tebris VII, under the ownership of a mech known to us as Demus.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>I want the information posted permanently in a place where their conjunxes, amicae, colleagues, mentees, mentors, guardians, and friends will be able to access it without having to identify themselves to any authorities on the Autobot side of things who may or may not be privy to the information themselves. I don’t want anyone to be arrested, no matter what they may or may not be accused of, because they dared to try and find out what happened to someone they loved.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>If you are willing to lend your voice to mine in dealing with Fortress Maximus, I would be eternally grateful to you for that. Whether or not you do, if he does not comply with our request that this information be divulged to the public, I will release a complete recording of the events of that day to the people of Cybertron, Destron, and perhaps even Earth.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>The office of the Tyrest Accord is responsible not only to Autobots, but also to Decepticons. We still exist. Nobody wearing an Autobot badge is legally empowered to disband the Decepticon movement, the Decepticon military forces, or surrender sovereign Destronian territory to the Autobots, the Council of Worlds, the Galactic Council, <span class="u">or anyone else</span>. As rulers of Sanctuary Station, if nothing else, Soundwave and I have a right to be heard.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Should it turn out that Fortress Maximus recovered your brother, or should his fate be revealed in any records he may have acquired, it will be up to you whether you choose to share the information or to lose it forever. I only speak for Destron and I have no right to judge how you live your ethics, which are foreign to me. But as one beastformer to another, I beg and entreat you not to hide any truth which this may reveal.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>As heirs to the House of Ambustus Minor, you and your brother rose to power and became complicit in the actions of a system that oppressed, crushed and destroyed other people like you. You benefitted directly from laws and institutions that did immeasurable harm to the rest of us. I do not ask you to reveal the truth as penance for this. I do not know if I can honestly say that I or anyone else I know would be strong enough to give up what you were given in order to face what the rest of us were forced to face. I ask you this in the faint, glimmering hope that people who will not see any of the hundreds of others destroyed, disabled and enslaved on Tebris VII as people might find themselves unable to dismiss the personhood of Dominus Ambus, or Minimus Ambus, who is also Ultra Magnus. I want those people to have to care.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>I am sharing with you some unedited recordings of the walk I took through Demus’ warehouse with Grimlock. I want you to see what I saw. I don’t know if you are able to feel what I felt, but I want you to feel it, because I’m not sure you ever have. If you edit it down into a format you could use to try and destroy my reputation, I will of course tell everyone what I know to be true of you, but I don’t believe I will have to. Megatron cares for you. And to me, that means you must be a much better person than that.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>I want you to understand how much they hate us out there. If it occurs to you that you could have done something over these past millions of years to alleviate that hatred, do not dwell on it. There is no way to know whether you could or would have succeeded in that. I would only ask you to act <span class="u">now</span>.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Megatron cares for you. Remember that he is my amica endura. The only things I have kept from him, really, are the political and military realities of Destron since his abdication, and the personal things that belong to me and to Soundwave together, alone. I’m afraid that you and I were never close enough for me to have kept your secrets from him, or from Soundwave.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Before you make any decision—no matter how angry I’ve made you—I beseech you to discuss this with Megatron. He fought for you, as well as for us, whether or not you acknowledge it. If Orion hadn’t gone the way he did—if you and your brother had brought your education and your moral understanding to the cause—perhaps things might have gone differently. It would have been nice if Soundwave and I had not been the only ones on Megatron’s council who argued against such persons as Galvatron, Scorponok, Tarn, and Overlord.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>But that’s up to you. You can also discuss it with Rodimus. He has a bright spark, and he means well; I came to care for him more than I ever believed I would.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>The past is the past and the future is before us. We can only do what is possible to do now.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>I am trusting you because my amica endura trusts you, and because you did your best to save him from destruction, even when that was not what you wished.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>We were never friends, nor could we have been while I was on board the <span class="u">Lost Light</span> by your sufferance. Perhaps, if we are honest now, we can earn one another’s respect.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>In the hope of peace without tyranny,<br/>
Ravage Stanixa Vox Destron</i>
</p><p>Minimus Ambus closed his optics for a moment, then closed and saved the message. Of course, she didn’t know. She didn’t know what they knew about Dominus now, and she probably didn’t know what had happened to Megatron, yet. She’d probably written this while waiting for news of him. He did know she’d contacted Swerve about that, or that someone had anyway. This was the second time she’d sent word to them about something wrong on the ship. It was almost…</p><p>It was almost as if she actually <i>cared</i> about people...because <i>of course</i>, she cared about people. Maybe she even cared about him.</p><p>He wouldn’t have to worry about outing himself if the information went public. He couldn’t deny that there would be those on the Council who’d want it buried. He couldn’t deny that there were those on Cybertron who’d seek to use the information to lure out unreintegrated Decepticons in hiding. He knew that the kith of the lost had a right to know.</p><p>So he’d ally himself with her, in asking that of his successor.</p><p>And he wouldn’t have to choose whether or not to reveal himself to a world that probably actually didn’t care about Minimus Ambus, now that Ultra Magnus no longer existed. But he also could not help feeling something a lot like guilt, and he hadn’t even looked at her recordings yet.</p><p>He wasn’t sure he wanted to look at recordings from a place like that, taken by someone who’d been one of Soundwave’s cassettes, and before that a Senatorial Recorder. But he wasn’t sure that didn’t make him a coward, and he wasn’t sure he could keep from looking. Why should he be spared what Ravage and Grimlock had braved?</p><p>He wondered if Megatron had recovered.</p><p>When he walked out onto the bridge, though, Rodimus and Megatron were arguing. Megatron wanted to take the first shift he’d been scheduled for, and Rodimus thought he should rest. Minimus knew that he wasn’t about to rest, not after that.</p><p>“Megatron,” he said quietly. “Will you come back with me to my habsuite? There is something I’d like to discuss with you.”</p><p>Megatron’s brow ridges flared in annoyance. “If this is some attempt to get me to lie back down and <i>rest</i> after spending a good portion of the last two shifts unconscious—”</p><p>Rodimus was making that...<i>expression</i> that Minimus hated almost as much as Megatron did. “Go,” he said. “You’ve missed out on a lot of important stuff. <i>Command decisions</i>. I got too much to do this shift, I don’t got the time to <i>debrief</i> you, let him do it?”</p><p>How could anyone make a phrase like ‘command decisions’ sound so <i>inappropriate</i>? And there was the bad grammar again, too!</p><p>Megatron glanced from one to the other of them. Satisfied that Minimus had no idea what Rodimus was getting at, at least apparently, he rolled his optics. “Fine,” he growled. He was not fine at all.</p><p>In the hallway, once they were out of earshot of everyone else, Minimus ex-vented.</p><p>“<i>I need you, Megatron</i>.” Minimus hated the way his voice sounded. He was not a weak animal. He didn’t <i>need</i> people, because he had secrets, because there were things that he just couldn’t tell them, because they would disappear if they knew.</p><p>But if Ravage was telling the truth…Megatron hadn’t.</p><p>“You should’ve just said that,” Megatron grumbled, and followed him down to his habsuite without any further complaints.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0022"><h2>22. the calm I feel means a storm is swelling</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>I know I’m still delusional sometimes, not one of us here is completely sane; but we can help each other, and I like to think we do.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"Why let your shoulders bend underneath this burden when my back is sturdy and strong?<br/>Speak to me, let me have a look inside these eyes while I'm learning.<br/>Please don't hide them just because of tears.<br/>Let me send you off to sleep with a 'there, there, now stop your turning and tossing.'<br/>Let me know where the hurt is and how to heal..."</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIkZTCwBVgY">10,000 Maniacs</a>, "Trouble Me"</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I woke up on the couch, but I was comfortable; someone had put a pillow under my head, and Viridian was curled into me, with a mesh blanket thrown over both of us.</p><p>I felt cosy and warm and restless and hyperalert all at once. <i>Why?</i></p><p>I was on my way home. Soundwave was going to welcome me with open arms. My... child? had been returned to me, and though I was angry that someone had made the choice to create her without my conscious consent or involvement, I was deeply and inexplicably <i>glad</i> she existed, regardless of the circumstances. And Megatron had reached me, and told me he’d been in the medbay, and in stasis for a while, but not to worry—he was going to be fine.</p><p>What did I have to panic about?</p><p>Megatron had been in the medbay. In stasis. Someone had dared to <i>attack</i> him.</p><p><i><b>Tailgate</b></i> had dared to attack him.</p><p>Tailgate. Who was smaller than <i>me</i>.</p><p>With <i>mnemosurgery needles</i>. Where had he got them? Did he even have any idea how to use them? </p><p>Tailgate was lucky to be alive. If I’d been there, he wouldn’t have been. And yet, I knew that was not a good thing, because that action had been so uncharacteristic of the Tailgate I knew that I would have wished I could question him after my blood had cooled.</p><p>I knew a lot of people hated Megatron. I even understood that they had reason to. I knew that even if he escaped execution, someone would probably get him some day, and it would probably be someone who had a right to try for him.</p><p>But Tailgate? Hadn’t he spent most of the war stuck in a pit?</p><p>Of course, I supposed, that would drive anyone mad. But he hadn’t been put there by Megatron, or by the Decepticons. According to rumour, when he’d first heard about the war, he’d thought <i>we were in the right</i>.</p><p>Well. We had been, initially. And I still couldn’t find it in myself to support a fragging theocracy. I would’ve even told him that for ten shanix and a packet of fancy energon gels, but no-one had offered me the deal.</p><p>This had to be some kind of conspiracy. An exceptionally dumb conspiracy, given their choice of Tailgate as a hit bot, against Megatron, but being stupid doesn’t make people harmless. In some ways, it only makes them more dangerous, because the things they do aren’t logical enough to be predictable.</p><p>I stretched, and considered who on the <i>Lost Light</i> might have been dumb enough to pick Tailgate as an assassin. Or if he’d even been meant to succeed, and what that might have meant.</p><p>Something was nagging at the edges of my mind. Maybe, if I got more recharge, it would become an actual coherent thought process that I could examine and evaluate.</p><p>Then I saw the datapad under Viridian’s head. I gingerly slid it out, smiling when she pawed at it drowsily, and then I realised I’d <i>actually sent the letter</i>.</p><p>The letter I’d written in the dead of the night, drinking engex, while Misfire and Viridian had watched a bunch of ridiculously wealthy and idle human females try to establish and maintain a hierarchy among themselves so badly that even I stopped finding it funny, and had therefore decided to channel my rage into a letter to Ultra Magnus, which I had revised at least seven times before I thought it sounded like something he’d actually read.</p><p>But I’d sent it. I’d promised myself I was going to read it over when I got out of recharge and give it one last revision as needed.</p><p>And then I’d fallen into recharge.</p><p>I looked down at Viridian, wondering. Had <i>she</i> been the one to hit ‘Send’? Or did I not remember? Had I written and sent it <i>drunk</i>?</p><p>I opened up the text file, read it twice over, and then I allowed myself to be a little relieved, because it was actually a pretty good letter. I could probably have written a better one without the assistance of engex, Real Housewives, and the ugly terror that my amica endura might have died…but it said what I’d needed to say, with no loss of dignity or control, and no calling Ultra Magnus a collaborator and a traitor to his kind.</p><p>I mean, I implied those things…but then, they were true.</p><p>He hadn’t responded. I told myself I shouldn’t be surprised, that he of all people would need to take his own sweet time about finding the right words with which to respond to me (especially if those words were any variation on ‘no, no, and fuck no’) and that if I’d already got a response it would mean he hadn’t taken me seriously.</p><p>I refused to give myself permission to panic.</p><p>But I’ve never been very good at not doing things just because somebody said I wasn’t allowed.</p><p>I went back down into the cargo bay and commed Soundwave, and I read the letter to him. He told me I was brilliant. Then he started playing my EM field through our spark-bond and we talked each other through a couple of overloads, because we are predictable that way, and there are worse ways to snap someone out of a panic.</p><p>When I returned to the common living area, energon and video games were in progress, and Viridian was beating the Pit out of Fulcrum at Tetrablox. I still felt panicky. I didn’t know why. Soundwave was right; I had been right to send the letter, although it’s usually better to recharge over something like that, just in case.</p><p>I had already begun my formal petition to Fortress Maximus, so I got back to work on that. That was a much easier piece of writing, because all I cared about was being very clear about what needed to be done and why. Fortress Maximus had no secret identity. Everyone who disagreed with him already knew he was an aft.</p><p>“You need to fuel, too,” said Krok, bringing me a cube and an assortment of metallic powders. “Do you really need to do all this right now, or are you running on autopilot because you want to be too busy to think about what you just experienced?”</p><p>“Thanks,” I said, taking the energon and adding the spices, and then, “What?”</p><p>Krok sat down at the table with me. “Since we got off Tebris VII, you’ve revised your manuscript and sent it back to your agent—I’m assuming that’s Lady Esmeral—and you started working on something intense while we were all watching Misfire’s show last night. I could tell it was intense. There are faces you make. And the frantic editing and revision was also a really big clue. Now you’re working again. Until we went down on Tebris, you spent just as much time doing not very much as the crew does, and I thought it was good for you. You’re going to have a lot of work and a lot of pressure to deal with once you get home.”</p><p>“This is important,” I said. “It’s a petition to Fortress Maximus to conduct his investigation of what we found openly, and to make the names of all of the victims public and easily accessible, without requiring kith to identify themselves—so that he can’t use it as bait to hunt beast-form Decepticons down who aren’t doing anything but trying to find out what happened to the people they love.”</p><p>Krok nodded and gently removed the datapad from my hands. “Yes, that’s important. But drink your energon, Ravage.”</p><p>I did take a drink. It was good energon. And I like manganese, so I’d been liberal with the purple stuff.</p><p>“Fortress Maximus would have taken us in just for getting shot down and trying to buy scrap to fix our ship.” I took another drink. “He’s operating on the assumption that all Decepticons must be doing something wrong, and that if he arrests us and drags us in, he and Red Alert can get something out of us to charge us with. That’s not what he’s supposed to be doing. He’s supposed to be enforcing the Tyrest Accord. Getting shot down and being in the wrong place at the wrong time is not a violation of the Tyrest Accord. We weren’t there to sell anything. You flatly refused to sell…”</p><p>Well, they’d flatly refused to sell <i>me</i>. And I didn’t think they would actually have sold Grimlock, because Misfire would have lost it, and that would’ve been the end of this crew, and they knew that, now. And they also had had it brought home to them that nobody offers you money for <i>people</i> unless they’re going to do something awful to them.</p><p>Krok sighed. “In the end, yes. And we certainly won’t make that sort of mistake in the future.”</p><p>I nodded. “He’s abusing his power and he’s going to continue unless someone stops him. This is a public petition I’m working on now. Starscream will see it. Windblade will see it. Fucking <i>Optimus</i> will be able to see it if he wants. He needs to know that if he tries to use this to shake people down, or hides the list of survivors so that he can disappear whichever ones he’s got uses for, I’m going to share recordings of what we found.”</p><p>I took another drink. “I haven’t stopped recording important things just because I’m a car now. I don’t have tape any more, except for that thing Spin gave me, but…I still have memory banks, and I maintain encrypted external storage. I’m <i>always</i> on, Krok. I delete trivia, and I save the personal stuff that’s private or of interest to no-one but me where no-one else can get it. But everything that could be useful to the cause is time-stamped, recorded, encrypted, and kept behind multiple layers of thyline shielding to prevent accidental erasure.”</p><p>Krok nodded. “You save conversations like these?”</p><p>“Sometimes,” I said. “When I want to remember them. I’ve got a feeling you might say something important before very long. You’ve got that look about you.”</p><p>He handed me another cube, because I’d drained the one I had. I spooned the manganese over it, with copper shavings this time.</p><p>“I could wish you wouldn’t stir him up while we’re still in this sector,” Krok said wryly.</p><p>I smiled at him and drank my energon like a good girl. “This is actually a sort of insurance,” I said. “If we don’t make it home in a reasonable amount of time after this has been posted as a public petition, people will take Soundwave seriously when he demands an investigation.”</p><p>“<i>Oh</i>,” said Krok, and he’d never looked greyer in my presence. He closed his optics for a moment. “Ravage,” he said. “I’m not…well. That is important, and it is important now. So I will leave you be to finish it after you’re fully fuelled. But…” He glanced over at Viridian, who was now beating Misfire at Tetrablox. “She needs you, especially since she is going to have to share you with Soundwave when you get home, and we both know you’re going to spend lots of time locked up with him in private.”</p><p>I laughed. “Okay, fair.”</p><p>“And Grimlock…”</p><p>“Is Grimlock okay? I thought Misfire would’ve said something—” I frowned. Just as Grimlock was the only one who really understood what I’d experienced, I was the only one who really understood what he’d experienced. Except Viridian, of course.</p><p>“He’s sleeping a lot more than he was,” said Krok. “He’s depressed. Misfire and you are doing your best, but I wanted you to know that…I’ve <i>noticed</i>. Just like I’ve noticed Viridian being clingy and needing your attention sometimes when you’re working, though Misfire’s been good for that too, and just like I’ve noticed how anxious and hyperactive you are. You and Grimlock are traumatised, not the same way that Viridian has been, but…”</p><p>I started to protest, because we’d got out of there with nothing but minimal scratches on our plate and bruised dignities, but…the truth was, we did have some awful recharge hallucinations, and I’d been prone to waking up from them and wandering, as had Viridian. “You’re right,” I said. “We are. But it can’t be helped. We can’t unsee what we’ve seen, and I don’t <i>want</i> to. People need to know about this.”</p><p>Krok nodded, slowly. “Just promise me that once you’re done with that you’ll take some time to relax, today, and fuel with everyone else. And there’s no shame in using a sedative if you need one to sleep.”</p><p>I nodded, worrying my lower lip-plate with a fang. “I don’t take sedatives. What if Soundwave calls with an emergency? What if someone fires on the ship again and you need me back in the gunner coves?”</p><p>“Soundwave isn’t going to comm you with an emergency you can’t do anything <i>about</i>,” said Krok, and I knew he was right. “He’ll tell you about it once it’s all over so you can be proud of him and have celebratory commsex in the cargo bay. Which I approve of wholeheartedly, so there’s no need to be embarrassed. And Misfire can actually hit what he’s aiming at if it’s a matter of survival. You really are a passenger, even though we all appreciate that you’ve acted as part of the crew. And we are in your service now, as well as his. We need you to take care of yourself for us, and stay strong, Ravage.”</p><p>I took his hand and squeezed it. “Thank you,” I said, almost airlessly. I was a little embarrassed, although not particularly so about the commsex.</p><p>“I know I haven’t got your particular lived experience,” Krok said, and made it sound almost like an afterthought. “But I also know that you don’t want to worry Soundwave, and that Grimlock and Viridian are comforting, but not the best conversationalists right now. I am <i>always</i> here to talk, if you need to. And so are the rest of us. I know I’m still delusional sometimes, not one of us here is completely sane; but we can help each other, and I like to think we do.”</p><p>I swallowed the rest of the energon and wiped my damn leaky optics again with a napkin, which was even almost clean. “We do,” I said.</p><p>“I’ll let you get back to your work.”</p><p>I finished the petition a few breems later, shipped it to Soundwave for his approval, which he sent by text because we did not need to get distracted again with so much else left to do, and I sent it off to the Office of the Tyrest Accord and the Council of Worlds.</p><p>Then I went and let Viridian beat me at Tetrablox, too.</p>
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<a name="section0023"><h2>23. the high road is hard to find</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>You ever get between people who aren’t done with each other yet, try to help one or more of them, and then they all turn on you?</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"This army has so many heads--are you one of us?<br/>Come on and get your overdose,<br/>Collect it at the borderline<br/>They want to get up in your head<br/>Cause they know and so do I<br/>The high road is hard to find<br/>A detour in your new life,<br/>Tell all of your friends goodbye..."</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWBG1j_flrg">Broken Bells</a>, "The High Road"</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Fortress Maximus was livid. But that was okay. So was Starscream; only for once, he was actually trying to hide it.</p><p>“Look,” said Starscream, “I had to call you off, because you have more important things to do than chase Ravage. She was only on Tebris VII because her transport was shot down, and she wouldn’t have attacked you if you hadn’t attacked the crew of her transport. Nobody aboard that ship had any intention of selling anything. Soundwave has confirmed that he paid them to take her to Sanctuary Station, with instructions to take a circuitous route in order to evade Galvatron’s agents.”</p><p>“Well, <i>that</i> didn’t work.” Fortress Maximus snorted.</p><p>“Nonetheless,” said Starscream, impatiently stirring a few drops of mercury into a glass of high-grade, “the Council of Worlds has not issued a warrant for her arrest. She has the right to go home, and we’ll all be better off if she <i>does</i>.” He shook the spoon over the glass as if it had personally offended him, because he couldn’t shake any of the people who actually had. Then he glanced up at Fortress Maximus. “I’m sorry, would you like some?”</p><p>“I don’t drink on the job,” Fortress Maximus said curtly.</p><p>“I would if I were you,” Starscream said, sniffing the glass and its contents before taking a small sip.</p><p>“She’s got an escaped prisoner on that transport,” Fortress Maximus said sourly.</p><p>“So she does,” Starscream said, with a shrug. “I’m afraid I don’t know why the Autobots arrested Grimlock for fighting <i>Shockwave</i> and <i>Scorponok</i>, why Ultra Magnus as Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord was even involved with that, or why Grimlock didn’t take the deal he was offered. What I do know is that Shockwave and Scorponok are menaces, Grimlock is in no condition to be tried or punished for anything, and that <i>I <b>don’t <span class="u">care</span>.</b></i>”</p><p>“She’s also got my informant on that transport.” Fortress Maximus dropped a hard copy of an image on Starscream’s desk.</p><p>Starscream picked it up and watched the small green cougaraider dance a figure-eight around Misfire’s legs, drop the datapad, leap away, and scurry up Misfire’s back, then Ravage’s back. He raised a single brow ridge and tried not to smirk, but did not quite succeed. “<i>That’s</i> your informant? I think he quit. Unless he’s committed a crime, we can’t go after him, either.”</p><p>“Blackcat of Kalis,” said Fortress Maximus, frowning. “I’d intended to register myself as their mentor.”</p><p>“I intended to rule the Decepticons once,” said Starscream lightly. “I wasn’t nearly ambitious enough, then! What matters here is that your position as Enforcer of the Tyrest Accord does not give you the authority to go hunting for Decepticons who are not violating it,” he went on to explain. “You attempted to arrest six Decepticons who weren’t breaking any of the laws that you’re supposed to enforce, apparently on the grounds that you dislike Decepticons, they must have been doing <i>something</i> wrong, and that once you and Red Alert had interrogated them, you’d be able to find a good reason to lock them up. That’s not how this is supposed to work.”</p><p>“You know,” Fortress Maximus finally said, “I should’ve expected this reaction from <i>you</i>.”</p><p>“Yes,” said Starscream. “You should’ve. Would you please either leave or sit down?” He gestured fluidly to the most solid of the chairs in his office. “I’m afraid that towering over me has lost its effectiveness as a way of convincing me to do anything. It’s not like <i>you’re</i> going to beat me, or like you could get away with it if you tried.”</p><p>Fortress Maximus sat down. “Do you know what Ravage has asked me to do?”</p><p>“Yes. I think you should do it,” said Starscream. “If I have to order you to, I will be <i>disappointed</i>.” He let his lip-plates curl into a moue and fluttered his brows, and his wings twitched. “Of course, I’m accustomed to disappointment. But the Tyrest Accord <i>was</i> an Autobot-Decepticon treaty.”</p><p>“Technically,” said Fortress Maximus, “there are no more Decepticons.”</p><p>“Then you’ll have to tell me who started the riot in my spacebridge,” Starscream said, laughing. He paused to stir another drop of mercury into his drink. “If there are no Decepticons, then there’s no Tyrest Accord for you to enforce. The <i>laws</i> still exist, because they were written into both the Autobot Code and the Code of Interplanetary Conflict, and someone should be enforcing them, but your title and your jurisdiction might warrant discussion by the Council of Worlds as a whole. Are you still going to continue to stand there and tell me that the Decepticons don’t have the right to petition you for justice? You knew what the job entailed when you took it on,” Starscream said with a prim little sniff.</p><p>“But Megatron and the Prime agreed—”</p><p>“And no-one asked Soundwave, or Deathsaurus, or Shockwave, or Galvatron, or any other actual Decepticon leader. Megatron is a fool, and if the Prime thought that was ever going to work, <i>he’s</i> no brighter than I ever thought he was, either,” said Starscream. “For that matter, who’s the actual leader of the Autobots now? Are they even a polity? They don’t have a representative on the Council of Worlds. Cybertron does, because it’s a world. The Autobots aren’t a world. At least Sanctuary Station, Wakuchikkan, and Ankokuyousai are planetary governments.”</p><p>Fortress Maximus crossed his arms across his chest. “You’re going to bring each of them into the Council, aren’t you? That’s your plan. Prowl said you were going to try to turn this thing into the new Decepticon Empire, but I didn’t believe him—”</p><p>“Stop,” Starscream said flatly. “Just…stop.” After a long moment, he ex-vented. “I’m going to be very nice and explain something to you that nobody else is going to, so listen to me carefully the first time, because this is a thing that I will not repeat.”</p><p>Fortress Maximus closed his mouth. Apparently he <i>wasn’t</i> as dumb as he looked.</p><p>“Don’t put yourself between Prime, Megatron, Soundwave, and Ravage,” said Starscream, very quietly. “Especially not now that Megatron isn’t holding onto Ravage’s leash. You weren’t around when the four of them were…well, a <i>thing</i>.”</p><p>“What,” Fortress Maximus said, and stopped, as if his processor had just gone dead before he could finish the sentence.</p><p>Starscream tapped his claws against his desktop. “Stop that. Wake up. <i>Listen</i> to me.”</p><p>“Did you just insinuate that Optimus Prime…” Fortress Maximus couldn’t finish the sentence. “With <i>all</i> of them?” His voice hit a high note that Windblade couldn’t have hit with a blaster. It was all that Starscream could do not to laugh.</p><p>“Well, I wasn’t in the <i>room</i> when it happened, but I was around back then,” said Starscream, shrugging with a little fluff of his wings. “I can’t imagine any better way to make Megatron less attractive than to drape Ravage and Soundwave all over him,” he said with a little shudder. “But they went <i>everywhere</i> together for a while. You ever notice that Soundwave and Prime have almost identical helm crests and blast masks?" He paused to let that sink in, but not for long enough to give his opponent a chance to answer.</p><p>“I’m not going to sit around wondering if they all ever clanged each other at once, although that implication is almost certainly why that one poem Ravage wrote keeps getting reposted and then deleted from Autobuddies. This is not the important part of what I am trying to tell you, so save the details for your self-service bank if they’re so fascinating. The important part is that no matter who was clanging who, and who was in it for more of an amica thing, their <i>breakup had a body count.</i>”</p><p>“Really.” Fortress Maximus was beginning to look sceptical, rather than shocked.</p><p>“You’re talking to the idiot who watched it all go down, then thought he could waltz right into the space Orion Pax left empty and give the other two the little push I thought they’d need to lose themselves in each other and get out of my way.” Starscream mimed the push with a flick of his fingers. If only he’d known then how mindlessly loyal Soundwave was, and how fiercely the cat defended marked territory.</p><p>“Fine. What does this have to do with me?” Fortress Maximus growled.</p><p>“You ever get between people who aren’t done with each other yet, try to help one or more of them, and then they all turn on you?” Starscream asked with a faint ex-vented sigh. “No? Really? It figures. Ask any of the people who tried to get me away from Megatron back before I decided he wasn’t worth having. I’m amazed that Ravage finally figured it out. I didn’t think you could get anything out of that mouth once her teeth sank in.”</p><p>“I don’t want to bring Ravage in because of anything she did to <i>Optimus</i>.” Fortress Maximus rolled his optics. “I want my <i><b>informant</b></i> back!”</p><p>“Yeah, that’s not happening. You can’t get anything out of her mouth once her teeth sink in,” Starscream repeated wearily. “Not until she’s ready to spit it out. Soundwave will back her up till the end of time, because she’s all he’s got now to be mindlessly loyal to, and she put her collar on him long before Megatron did. Galvatron showed his aft like I could’ve told him he would and apparently she’s just as good at what she does as I am.”</p><p>“I didn’t know how old Blackcat was,” Fortress Maximus began.</p><p>Starscream just laughed. “Who cares?”</p><p>“I care!” Fortress Maximus said, and visibly had to restrain himself.</p><p>Starscream shrugged. “Blackcat was older than any of your MTOs. And Blackcat wasn’t in their right mind when they fucked off with Ravage, but if they change their mind, they’ll turn up. Spinister gave you the instructions for repairing the Roboids. The lunatic must have practised on <i>someone</i>.”</p><p>“Ravage is keeping me from my actual <i>work</i> with these ridiculous demands. If I can’t bring her in, I want her out of our territory!”</p><p>Starscream smiled. Now who was being petulant? But somehow it actually made the big bot seem almost sympathetic. “I’m fairly sure that she wants the same thing. They’re junxies now, you know. I wonder if leaving Megatron was her Act of Devotion.”</p><p>Fortress Maximus had to laugh. Starscream grinned at him. But it was a thin little grin. For some reason, Megatron had never hit <i>Ravage</i>. Not once.</p><p>“I could give her an offer of safe passage through the spacebridge at Iacon Spaceport,” Starscream drawled, leaning back for the decanter to refresh his glass. “I bet that entire ship could go through.”</p><p>“You’d waste the energon for <i>that</i>?” Fortress Maximus made a worse face than any of the ones he’d made previously, which…was actually sort of impressive.</p><p>“How much did <i>you</i> plan to waste chasing them?” Starscream leaned forward, in  the cosy, conspiratorial way he’d lulled a lot of other people into trusting him before, and cocked his head to one side. “Just don’t tell Prime about it. I don’t want another episode of that holonovela to happen where I have to watch.”</p><p>“We could at least trade them back,” Fortress Maximus countered. “Don’t the Decepticons still have some of our people?”</p><p>“Not Soundwave, and no, I don’t think so. Soundwave would pay a ransom for her and that crew, but then he’d be in a <i>really</i> bad mood, because Prime already attempted to blackmail him, and that’s how Ravage ended up in your way in the first place.” Starscream picked up a rust stick and nibbled at it delicately, then shrugged and offered the rest of the box to Fortress Maximus. “Do you have any idea what Soundwave knows about <i>you</i>? I don’t, by the way. I’m just asking. I only have an idea what he knows about <i>me</i>.” Which was more than enough.</p><p>“Ravage was on Tebris VII because Prime blackmailed <i>Soundwave</i>?” Fortress Maximus accepted a rust stick, which he then proceeded to use in lieu of a fidget spinner. “That doesn’t make sense.”</p><p>“She was there because Prime <i>failed</i> to blackmail Soundwave, and you can figure the rest of that out on your own,” said Starscream. “Soundwave is planning something. He’s probably been planning whatever it is for at least two thousand years, against just such a contingency as Galvatron’s put him in. Soundwave is as smart as Megatron <i>thinks</i> he is. I’d just as soon whatever he’s planning does not happen <i>here</i>. He can have the whole ghetto if he wants them; they can follow her through and they can be <i>his</i> problem. I don’t need any more Decepticon riots in Iacon.”</p><p>“Do you really think Soundwave will trust you with his conjunx?” Fortress Maximus asked, glancing out the window. “I don’t mean…well, maybe I do. I’m sure he believes you’re a traitor, too.”</p><p>“He’s thought that for at least three million years,” said Starscream. “But he’ll be on the other end of the controls, which means he’ll be <i>interfaced</i> with the whole fragging network, and he’s penetrated that spacebridge’s defences before.” He deliberately made it sound as dirty as possible, because he’d noticed Fortress Maximus found innuendo unsettling.</p><p>Fortress Maximus clearly had misgivings, but he ex-vented slowly, and Starscream knew he was giving up on the argument.</p><p>Starscream lifted his glass of high-grade and drained it. “To me. I fix everything.” He rolled his shoulders languidly. “But I want you to do what she and the Magnus both asked you to do. It’s reasonable. You can’t go keeping all of those people as if they were pets while Cerebros works on them, no matter how adorable you think they are. People will think you’re perverse. Their kith should be involved while they are getting the help that they need, and the transparency will be appreciated.”</p><p>He poured himself another drink. “Think of the public relations! There’s no bad way you can spin this. There are still people looking for some of them. You’re doing your job, you’re acknowledging your responsibility to both sides of the conflict, and you’re <i>helping missing and murdered beastformers</i>. <i>Innocent people and their families</i>. As opposed to being one of the people who’s actually helping Galvatron win, by chasing the five most pathetic Decepticons ever and Cybertron’s next poet laureate all over the sector and distracting Soundwave. If the Council actually does have to recognise the Decepticons, Soundwave’s a sad case, but he isn’t a fuckup.”</p><p>“And Grimlock?” Fortress Maximus finally said, looking uncomfortably convinced.</p><p>Starscream chuckled. “You really care if Soundwave gets another pity recruit? If you really think he wants to fight us, which I assure you he does not, consider this: Grimlock will cause him more trouble than we can, from this far away.”</p>
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<a name="section0024"><h2>24. god doesn't know you like I do</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sanctuary is a place we build ourselves.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"You're the taste of mint, under a midnight flit<br/>And why I couldn't just go, and try to sleep on it<br/>God knows I want to, God knows I need to<br/>God doesn't know you like I do<br/>And I do..."</p><p>Soundtrack: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XdOzd7pLVo">Kathleen Edwards</a>, "Mint"</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><i>From <span class="u">Litanies For an Army of Lovers</span>, by Ravage of Stanix:<br/>
(originally from the author's private correspondence)</i><br/>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~</p><p>You are not a god, but I will pray to you, and you will worship me.<br/>
We don’t need gods to save us. We will save ourselves.</p><p>I will pray to you with my mouth full of petals, my open valve and my shivering spark.<br/>
Spread me out across this common ground, the sovereignty of Destron,<br/>
And exalt me as the voice crying darkness and warmth<br/>
In the cold, unbearable, clinical light of the occupied world.</p><p>You were always and never will not be my sanctuary.</p><p>I am an animal but so are we all<br/>
I will sing the soft noises of lust, from the depths of the earth,<br/>
And the comforting darkness of wide open spaces.<br/>
I will lie on the forge of creation, and hope will flare out of me everywhere<br/>
And every light struck from my triumph and pain will take root in a guttering spark<br/>
And we will survive;<br/>
We are heat, and heat rises.</p>
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